"As military
pressure on ISIS ramps up, foreign fighters who travelled to
Syria and Iraq in recent years could return home to Western Europe
and pose a domestic threat, the continents top law enforcement
official said in an interview on Wednesday.

Europol Director
Rob Wainwright welcomed the progress made by the U.S.-led coalition
against the terror group and predicted its eventual downfall,
but told ABC News that Western European nations are challenged
with the task of tracking returning foreign fighters and neutralizing
any threat they may present."

"SAN
FRANCISCO  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive,
has cultivated relationships with Chinas leaders, including
President Xi Jinping. He has paid multiple visits to the country
to meet its top internet executives. He has made an effort to
learn Mandarin.

Inside Facebook,
the work to enter China runs far deeper.

The social
network has quietly developed software to suppress posts from
appearing in peoples news feeds in specific geographic
areas, according to three current and former Facebook employees,
who asked for anonymity because the tool is confidential. The
feature was created to help Facebook get into China, a market
where the social network has been blocked, these people said.
Mr. Zuckerberg has supported and defended the effort, the people
added."

"Youre
the first police officer to arrive at the scene: a suspected
ecstasy lab. Theres drug paraphernalia everywhere, but
which piece of evidence could be most helpful for your investigation?
Then, a massive virtual arrow appears, pointing out a bottle
of chemicals, accompanied by a note saying: Bag this please.

Dutch police
are trialling an augmented reality (AR) system that streams video
from body cameras worn by officers to experts elsewhere. These
experts can then guide the officers by annotating the scene virtually
with notes that the officers can see on a smartphone or head-mounted
device like Google Glass.

We now
have good enough software and hardware to use augmented reality
at crime scenes, says Dragos Datcu, principal researcher
at AR company Twnkls in Rotterdam, the Netherlands."

"Telcos
could be forced to block porn sites if a stealth government amendment
to the draft Digital Economy Bill is waved through by parliamentarians.

The report
stage and third reading of the proposed legislation, which seeks
to regulate a hunk of areas from Internet infrastructure to intellectual
property, will be debated by MPs next Monday (November 28). Age
verification for access to online porn also forms part of the
government's shopping list. Brits wanting to access fruity material
via websites or apps will be subjected to checks to confirm that
they are aged 18 or over.

...However,
the governmentin what lobby group the Internet Service
Providers' Association (ISPA) has described as a "significant
policy shift"is now saying that it wants ISPs to act
when online smut peddlers fail to use age checking mechanisms
on their sites."

"In order
to protect officers and their families while also ensuring we
can continue to recruit people for this extremely sensitive and
dangerous role, the police services has to protect the operational
principle that identities can not be officially confirmed or
denied.

(...)

Undercover
officers are recruited with the clear expectation that the law
enforcement agency they are working for will protect their identity
during deployment and afterwards, including into their retirement
and even after their death. We owe them and their families
protection from further harm that could be caused by revealing
their identities. This means that wherever possible we will take
a strong stance of not confirming or denying operational details
that could identify officers or put them at risk of harm." (emphasis added)

"Scientific advisers
to President Obama warn that the U.S. urgently needs a new biodefense
strategy and should regularly brief President-elect Donald Trump
on the dangers posed by new technologies like CRISPR, gene therapy,
and synthetic DNA, which they say could be coöpted by terrorists.

In a letter to the president,
the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
(PCAST) urges the creation of a new entity charged with developing
a national biodefense strategy within six months. Such a strategy
was developed in 2009, but it's carried out by several government
agencies in an uncoördinated approach, says Piers Millet,
a bioterror expert at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C."

"China has green-lit
a sweeping and controversial law that may grant Beijing unprecedented
access to foreign companies technology and hamstring their
operations in the worlds second-largest economy.

The Cyber Security Law was
passed by the Standing Committee of the National Peoples
Congress, Chinas top legislature, and will take effect
in June, government officials said Monday. Among other things,
it requires internet operators to cooperate with investigations
involving crime and national security, and imposes mandatory
testing and certification of computer equipment. Companies must
also give government investigators full access to their data
if wrong-doing is suspected.

Chinas grown increasingly
aggressive about safeguarding its IT systems in the wake of Edward
Snowdens revelations about U.S. spying, and is intent on
policing cyberspace as public discourse shifts to online forums
such as Tencent Holdings Ltd.s WeChat. The fear among foreign
companies is that requirements to store data locally and employ
only technology deemed secure means local firms gain
yet another edge over foreign rivals from Microsoft Corp. to
Cisco System Inc."

"A 91-year-old Danish
man who allegedly worked as a guard in a Belarus concentration
camp during World War II will not face any charges, a Danish
prosecutor said on Friday.

A top Nazi hunter from the
US-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Efraim Zuroff, travelled to
Denmark in July last year to file a police complaint against
Helmuth Leif Rasmussen, over war crimes alleged to have taken
place between 1942 and 1943.

"Information has not emerged during the investigation to
support the complaint we received from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre,"
chief prosecutor Steen Bechmann Jacobsen told AFP."

"Estonias government
has collapsed after the prime minister, Taavi Rõivas,
lost a confidence vote in parliament following months of Cabinet
squabbling, mainly over economic policies.

Lawmakers in the 101-seat
parliament on Wednesday ousted Rõivas in a 63-28 vote,
with 10 members abstaining or absent.

Estonian president, Kersti
Kaljulaid, has summoned the heads of the six parliamentary parties
on forming a new government.

The main opposition Centre
party, which is tipped to lead the new government, has vowed
to keep Estonia solidly rooted in the eurozone and Nato as the
Baltic state of 1.3 million people gears up to assume the EUs
rotating presidency in the second half of 2017."

"A new EU policy to fight
organised crime till 2020 is to be launched during Maltas
EU presidency.

Malta will work on the launch
of the new EU Policy Cycle on the fight against organised crime,
covering the period 2017-2020, following an assessment of the
current organised-crime situation carried out by Europol, Home
Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said.

He was addressing a press
conference with Europol Director Rob Wainwright at the Police
Headquarters in Floriana, following a meeting between the two
sides where views were exchanged on dossiers related to security,
as part of the final preparations for Malta's upcoming Presidency
of the Council of the EU."

"HONG KONG  Interpol
has chosen a top Chinese security official as its new president,
raising alarms from human rights groups concerned that the appointment
will lead to abuse of the global police organizations powers
to issue international arrest warrants.

The official, Meng Hongwei,
a vice minister of public security, was elected president by
the groups general assembly, Interpol announced on Thursday.
His appointment is effective immediately as he replaces Mireille
Ballestrazzi of France, the organization said in a statement.

While the job of Interpols
president is limited in scope, the announcement was met with
disdain by human rights groups. Authoritarian governments like
Russia and China have been known to abuse Interpols red
notices, tantamount to international arrest warrants, to
hunt down political enemies. Chinas law enforcement agencies
have shown little regard for international borders in recent
years, spiriting away political opponents from places like Thailand
and Myanmar."

"Europol director Rob
Wainwright has said he is satisfied with the level of bilateral
engagement taking place between the EUs law enforcement
agency and the Malta Police Force.

Speaking at a press conference
following talks with home affairs minister Carmelo Abela, Wainwright
said that he was pleased that there has been an "impressive
growth" in the amount of information exchanged between the
two agencies on a daily basis."

Chief Special Prosecutor Milivoje
Katnic said Sunday that the aim of the plot was to assassinate
Djukanovic, break into Parliament, and declare victory for a
political structure, which Katnic did not name, over
Djukanovics ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS),
which won the largest number of mandates."

"OCCRP partner the Serbian
Center for Investigative Journalism (CINS) raised the alarm Wednesday
on apparent attempts to intimidate its journalists.

For at least five days, unknown
people have stood outside the CINS office in Belgrade, photographing
reporters as they come and go, CINS said in a statement. Employees
of the organization have also been photographed in other public
places."

"Most Americans dont
like the idea of their government spying on their internet activities,
and a lot of them have misgivings about companies tracking their
online habits for commercial purposes. But when they are presented
with the tools and opportunity to play Big Brother with others
in their family, its tough for some to resist.

Im not just talking
about family members who register on the creepy-stalker side
of the spectrum, although there are certainly jealous spouses
and overbearing parents out there who surveil their partners
and children with an unhealthy vigilance. Digital monitoring
 from tracking those whom loved ones communicate with to
snooping on their social media accounts to checking their locations
 is becoming common even among people who view themselves
as mindful of the boundaries with their children and partners.

Is there such a thing as responsible
spying on loved ones?

The answer depends on whom
you ask. Strong believers in privacy reject the premise of the
question outright, while others believe it is possible if consent,
trust and respect are involved."

"Yahoo! Inc. is investigating
a new claim that user account data was obtained by a hacker,
the latest security challenge for the company as it prepares
for the planned acquisition of its core web services by Verizon
Communications Inc.

Law enforcement authorities
on Monday began sharing certain information they indicated was
provided by a hacker who claimed it was Yahoo user account data,
the company said Wednesday in a regulatory filing. Yahoo said
its analyzing the matter with the help of forensic experts."

"Austrias far-right
Freedom Party (FPO) presidential candidate has been criticised
by the countrys Protestant church for using the phrase
so help me God on his campaign posters. The church
also says Norbert Hofers anti-immigrant stance runs against
Christian principles.

As reported by the Reuters
news agency, Hofer hopes to persuade voters to make him the European
Unions first far-right head of state in a run-off election
on December 4.

(...)

God cannot be instrumentalised
for ones own intentions or for political purposes,
the three branches of the Protestant churches in the Alpine republic
said in a joint statement."

"Hungarys Prime
Minister Viktor Orban said his country must defend its borders
against mass immigration and stand up to Europes Sovietisation.

Speaking at a ceremony marking
the 1956 anti-Communist uprising, Orban said freedom in Europe
depended on the nation state and Christian traditions.

People who love their
freedom must save Brussels from Sovietisation, from people who
want to tell us who we should live within our countries,
he said in Moscow on October 23. We want to be a European
nation not a nationality within Europe.

As reported by the Reuters
news agency, a few hundred opposition protesters whistled loudly
as Orban spoke, and brawls broke out in the crowd between his
supporters and opponents.

We cannot create freedom
while this despicable leftist opposition exists, said Laszlo
Barta, an Orban supporter with a Hungarian flag flung across
his shoulders."

"Yassin al-Haj Saleh
has lived a life of struggle for his country. Under the Syrian
regime of Hafez al-Assad, he was a student activist organizing
against the government. In 1980, Saleh and hundreds of others
were arrested and accused of membership in a left-wing political
group. He was just 19 years old when a closed court found him
guilty of crimes against the state. Saleh spent the next 16 years
of his life behind bars.

I have a degree in medicine,
but I am a graduate of prison, and I am indebted to this experience,
Saleh said, sitting with us in a restaurant near Istanbuls
Taksim Square. Now in his 50s, with white hair and a dignified,
somewhat world-weary demeanor, Saleh, called Syrias voice
of conscience by many, has the appearance and bearing of
a university professor. But he speaks with passionate indignation
about what he calls the Assad dynastys enslavement
of the Syrian people."

"There is a warning of
winter-to-come on the edge of the October winds sweeping through
the elegant parks and handsome squares of Warsaw. Pedestrians
are already bundled up against the cold.

It will be useful preparation
for the chilly atmosphere Poland's politicians seem to expect
around the table when next year's Brexit negotiations bring together
the UK and the 27 countries that will remain in the EU after
it leaves.

Modern Poland is a place of
sharply polarised politics in which a broad coalition of liberal
opposition parties fear their country is in the grip of a government
so deeply conservative that it is exerting a kind of reactionary
grip on political life."

"Can supporting repressive
rulers with weapons help defeat violent Islamist extremism?
My research in Egypt suggests that the opposite is true. Based
on dozens of interviews with individuals who engaged in violence
between the 1970s and 1990s, I find that the primary motivation
for their behavior is state repression  not an Islamist
ideology. Like Najeh Ibrahim, each individual I met had a story
of state repression  some were brutally tortured, others
lost a family member through state violence; some were incarcerated
for long periods of time, others received threats that their
children would be killed; a few individuals said they heard about
others experiences of being tortured, killed or incarcerated."

"A 49-year-old man wounded
four police officers before he was arrested on Wednesday in Germany.

Two officers suffered serious
gunshot wounds; one of the officers is in a critical condition.

The man apparently belongs
to the far-right Reichsbuerger movement (Reich citizens). He
opened fire as the police raided his property to confiscate his
31 weapons, for which his permit had been revoked.

The so-called Reich citizens
[do] not recognize the post-WWII authority of the federal republic
and continue to pledge allegiance to the German Reich (Empire)."

"In 1948, the year Israel
was founded, the Mer Group was established as a metal workshop.

Today its a much different
company. It operates a dozen subsidiaries and employs 1,200 people
in over 40 countries, selling wireless infrastructure, software
for public transit ticketing systems, wastewater treatment, and
more. But at the ISDEF Expo, an event held last June to show
off Israeli technology to potential buyers from foreign security
forces, the Mer Groups representatives were only promoting
one thing: surveillance products sold by the companys security
division.

The Mer Groups evolution
from cutting metal to electronic snooping reflects a larger shift
in the Israeli economy. Technology is one of the main sectors
in Israeli industry. And Israeli firms with ties to intelligence,
like the Mer Group, are using their expertise to market themselves
internationally."

"Its the only country
in the UK where a woman can be jailed for having an abortion.
In Northern Ireland, women face a lifetime in prison for terminating
a pregnancy  a procedure freely available on the NHS to
women in the rest of the UK.

The laws putting women behind
bars were drawn up in the Nineteenth Century  and thats
where they belong. New research out today confirms that the law
is out of step with public attitudes."

"Belarus and Poland are
moving closer to each other. There is now a strong rapprochement
underway between the two countries with Belarusian Foreign Minister
Vladimir Makeis recent visit to Warsaw.

As reported by Belarus Digest
online, Polands Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski seems
to have a personal affinity for Makei. Waszczykowski and he trusts
that Belarus President Alexander Lukashenkas intentions
to mend bilateral ties between Minsk and Warsaw are sincere."

"A police officer has
been sacked for gross misconduct after becoming involved in a
row in a London bar while off duty.

PC Emilio Sabatino, based
at Brent Police , faced four allegations and was formally dismissed
following a Metropolitan Police misconduct hearing on Tuesday
(October 18).

It heard allegations that
he:

Urinated on the floor in the
toilets of a bar in London
Misused his warrant card
Swore at a security guard and raised his middle finger towards
him
Used a racially offensive term towards the security guard.

The PC admitted the third
allegation but denied the other three. The misconduct panel found
the first charge unproven but the other allegations were proved
and, in their view, breached the Standard of Professional Behaviour
in such a serious way that this amounted to gross misconduct."

"Representatives of four
Western Balkans police services participated at a regional conference
that was held today in Skopje.

The Conference, hosted by
the Mitko Chavkov, Police Director of Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia (FYROM), and facilitated by the EULEX mission, was
organized to intensify the cooperation and harmonise further
actions related terrorism and organized crime in the Balkans.
The Police Directors from Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and FYROM,
accompanied by their respective Directors of Investigations,
participated in the Conference."

"By the time Sulaman
Davlatov was arrested in early 2015 he had fled Tajikistan due
to political persecution. Acting on an INTERPOL Red Notice, Davlatov
was detained by Finnish authorities on 20 February. He was accused
of membership to Group 24...

Despite Tajikistan being heavily
suspected of INTERPOL abuse, the Red Notice meant that Davlatov
was held in detention for a month without charge, and without
any evidence being presented for the extremism charge.This serves
to demonstrate the ongoing need for reforms that guard INTERPOL
systems from abuse.

Since his release Davlatov
applied for asylum in Lithuania. Fabio Belafatti, working on
his case, produced a document which assessed the judicial system
in Tajikistan and gave extensive information on the targeting
of Group 24 members. This document succeeded in convincing Lithuanian
authorities that he is at risk if returned and he was granted
asylum."

"France must expect "new
attacks" by terrorists, with more "innocent victims,"
the French prime minister Manuel Valls warned yesterday when
he spoke on Europe 1 radio. He also revealed that French police
are monitoring 15,000 people who are "in a process of radicalisation.""

"The Living Memorial,
a grassroots monument in Budapests Liberty Square, in memory
to the 600,000 victims of the Holocaust in Hungary, was vandalised
this weekend, shortly after the neo-Nazi Kuruc.info website published
an article threatening to destroy the monument. Photographs displayed
at the site were torn and other items of remembrance added to
the Living Memorial by survivors and descendants of survivors
were shattered or removed."

"The Supreme Court of
Switzerland has overruled its judgment of Dogu Perinçek,
a prominent Turkish politician and leader of the Vatan Party,
over his conviction for denial of the Armenian genocide in 2005
in Switzerland. The decision came after the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in favor of Perinçek in October
2015, denying allegations of racial discrimination and evaluating
his comments about the 1915 event surrounding Armenians within
the framework of "freedom of speech."

The court also reversed his
judicial fine and ruled that he will receive compensation in
the form of 2,500 Swiss Francs ($2,560) from the Federal government
and Switzerland-Armenia Association."

"The Government has announced
plans to close Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), in
Lanarkshire, Scotland. Dungavel is currently Scotlands
only detention centre and holds 249 men and women. It is proposed
that this facility will close at the end of 2017, to be replaced
by a 51 person short term holding facility at Glasgow
Airport.

A reduction in the use of
detention was promised as part of the Governments commitment
to detention reform, and the closure of Dungavel within that
has been broadly welcomed by campaigners and NGOs.

While we welcome any steps
to reduce detention, AVID is concerned that this closure, coupled
with the opening of a new facility, does not go far enough to
meet the commitments made. For just as this closure is announced,
expansions of the two detention centres at Gatwick airport are
already underway, increasing those purpose built facilities by
100 beds. Once the new facility at Glasgow Airport is opened,
Dungavels closure will in fact represent a net reduction
of less than 100 bed spaces. A drop in the ocean, in the context
of a detention estate of over 3,300."

"Leading
organisations have voiced concerns that the new policy may lead
to a worsening of protection for vulnerable people in detention.
The policy limits the definition of torture, meaning that those
tortured at the hands of Isis, Boko Haram and others may no longer
be included. The policy increases the burden of evidence on vulnerable
people and balances vulnerability against a wider range of other
factors. We fear this will lead to more vulnerable people being
detained for longer.

The guidance
was laid before parliament the day before summer recess and will
come into effect one week after recess, meaning there has been
no opportunity for meaningful debate. Considering the potential
for significant harm to vulnerable detainees, we call for an
urgent review before this policy is implemented."

"An undercover officer
infiltrated a group of Islamic State supporters attempting to
smuggle themselves out of the UK to Syria in the back of a lorry,
an Old Bailey jury has been told.

Anas Abdalla, 26, from Acocks
Green, Birmingham, was discovered in an empty space inside a
cargo trailer at Dover port in April 2015 in the company of three
other men.

One of the others, Gabriel
Rasmus, 29, from Lozells, Birmingham, has already pleaded guilty,
the court heard, to preparing acts of terrorism, the same offence
under section 5(1) of the 2006 Terrorism Act with which Abdalla
is charged."

"This Saturday is World
Suicide Prevention Day, when we reflect on what needs to be done
to prevent suicide. The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes
that 800,000 people take their own lives each year across the
globe. Thats the equivalent of the population of Leeds
dying a tragic and preventable death every year - one person
every 40 seconds. It is a terrible waste of precious life, and
leaves a devastating legacy for families, friends and loved ones.

In the UK, suicide remains
the biggest killer of young men. There is a clear link between
chronic mental health conditions and preventable suicide, and
yet so often the mental health system fails to intervene in time.

One aspect of this ongoing
tragedy that deserves attention is the growing number of suicides
in our prisons."

"Britains departure
from the European Union might prove fatal to international police
efforts against terrorism, Europols director Rob Wainwright
told the German press.

Europols latest regulations
come into force in May 2017. But Westminster is yet to approve
their use in Britain and Brussels fears Prime Minister Theresa
May will soon pull Britain out of the European law agency too."

"The Howard League for
Penal Reform is challenging the legality of a series of decisions
by magistrates courts that led to a vulnerable and frightened
child being held in police custody for two nights over the non-payment
of fines.

The charity is seeking permission
to judicially review the decisions and processes that led to
the 15-year-old boy being detained, even though there is no legal
power to jail a child for not paying fines."

"An Israeli digital arms
company has prompted tech giant Apple to boost security for its
mobile operating system after developing a highly sophisticated
spyware package that allows complete control of iPhone devices.

The spyware  code-named
Pegasus  took advantage of previously undisclosed weaknesses
in Apples mobile operating system, iOS 9.3.5., according
to reports published Thursday by the San Francisco-based Lookout
smartphone security company and internet watchdog group Citizen
Lab."

"Bulgarian MPs on Thursday
adopted their annual report on the state of national security,
which listed the greatest risks in 2015 as the refugee crisis,
the wars in Syria and Ukraine and terrorism.

The parties in Bulgarias
governing coalition, GERB, and its junior partner, the Reformist
Bloc, also declared their commitment to complete the full four-year
mandate of the government, naming national security as a top
priority at a meeting on Thursday.

The other priorities agreed
on were financial stability and preparations for the Bulgarian
Presidency of the European Council, which is due to start in
January 2018."

"Former Czechoslovak
communist leader Milos Jakes, 94, and premier Lubomir Strougal,
91, are among 67 Czech and Slovak citizens sued for the deaths
of five East German at the border in the communist era, Platform
of European Memory and Conscience head Neela Winkelmann said
today.

The Platform filed the criminal
complaint with German Attorney General Peter Frank on August
18, she said."

"Around 12 million children
went back to school across France on Thursday as the government
unveiled a series of security procedures and guidelines designed
to help teachers in the event of a terrorist attack.

An otherwise normal return
to classes, or la rentrée as it is known in France, has
been marked by tighter screening of people entering school buildings,
more security drills and a greater police presence.

School officials in Frances
national education system have asked teachers and other staff
to remain extremely vigilant about the threat of
a terror attack."

"But after an ISIS-linked
man ignited a bomb in a Shiite mosque in Kuwait last year, killing
27, the mother of all troubling laws was rushed through the countrys
Parliament. The law requires that all citizens, residents and
visitors to the country submit DNA samples to enter or stay in
the country. It was passed in the name of national security and
in helping identify victims of large scale attacks.

Only recently are we starting
to understand just how powerful and potentially intrusive the
new DNA law, which is expected to fully go into effect late this
year, will be. In a wealthy nation where citizenship is passed
down by bloodline and is extremely restricted, officials have
been letting on about a mission creep that will give citizenship
enforcement an unprecedented scientific grounding, and possibly
leave thousands stripped of their nationalities."

"Issuing a call for the
protest on Thursday, the president of the Journalists Association,
Naser Selmani, recalled that Macedonia and Turkey are the only
countries in Europe where journalists are still imprisoned for
their work.

The Journalists Association
has called Bozinovski's arrest "politically motivated and
aimed at silencing journalists who had the courage to expose
scandals about the authorities".

The Journalists Union and
the Macedonia Institute for Media, as well as other organisations,
have supported the protest."

"Spanish counter-terrorism
authorities have issued an alert about the increase in
mentions of our country in recent propaganda material produced
by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), including text documents,
videos and graphs.

Jihadists are now writing
in Spanish, and even analyzing the political situation in Spain
through written reviews of election results."

"We used eye tracking
 a technology that allows us to look deeply into exactly
what you are looking at or paying attention to. Eye trackers
follow your gaze as you look naturally around a scene. We see
where your eye dwells and what things you skip over.

Where you stop is called a
fixation and where the eye darts around is called a saccade.
During saccades the eye is effectively blind. Watching what you
stop to pay attention to and what you dont see
can tell us a lot about what might be going on inside your mind
 what is driving your eyes to move about the way they do."

"The Czech and German
secret services have released a publication dealing with the
work of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) during the reform Prague
Spring in 1968, Jaroslav Hrbek, Office for Foreign Relations
and Information (UZSI) spokesman, said yesterday.

In it, there are the original
documents and so far unpublished photos from the German secret
service archives that relate to the Prague Spring and Czechoslovakia's
occupation by Warsaw Pact troops, Hrbek said."

"For the first time since
the end of the Cold War, the German government plans to tell
citizens to stockpile food and water in case of an attack or
catastrophe, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper
reported on Sunday.

Germany is currently on high
alert after two Islamist attacks and a shooting rampage by a
mentally unstable teenager last month. Berlin announced measures
earlier this month to spend considerably more on its police and
security forces and to create a special unit to counter cyber
crime and terrorism."

"Certainly, some of the
government programs created to address vulnerabilities exposed
by the 9/11 attacks were long overdue. The U.S. needed a much
better system for screening air travelers, one that did not allow
people to board airplanes with lethal weapons in hand. And it
made sense to harden New Yorks underwater subway tunnels
to limit the damage a bomb could do to both passengers and the
citys infrastructure.

But for every valid effort,
it seems like the terrorism-industrial complex came up with an
array of boondoggles that were profitable for the companies involved
but added little to the security of ordinary Americans. The upwards
of $47 billion spent on FirstNet, the troubled effort to make
sure firefighters and police could talk to each other in an emergency,
staggers the imagination. Altogether, Brill calculates, the government
has spent $100 to $150 billion on equipment and programs that
do not work. What might have been accomplished if all of that
money had been spent on, say, reducing the cost of a college
education for poor and middle-class kids?"

"The civilian use of
UAVs presents homeland security, critical national infrastructure
and commercial industries with a myriad of safety and privacy
challenges. However, while 2016 represents a landmark year for
the introduction of many new regulatory frameworks across many
countries, a huge number remain unclear or untested."

"Investigators filed
charges in spring against three members of the Czechoslovak Communist
secret police (StB) over participating in the harassment of dissidents
within the Asanace (Sanitation) raid under the Communist regime,
the server iDnes said on Monday.

"The foreign ministry
of Romania has denied that US nuclear weapons were being moved
from Turkey to Romania as ties between Washington and Ankara
soured after the failed coup of 15 July. Bucharest issued a press
release firmly rejecting the information, first reported by the
Euractiv news agency in Brussels. Defence minister Mihnea Motoc
said so far there have not been any plans or discussions
[in Nato] on this topic."

"In Stephen Shaws
substantive review of detention earlier this year, it did not
go unnoticed that the scale of immigration detention in the UK
had increased without any strategic plan, or statement of purpose.
He commented that the use of detention is determined on
a direct one to one basis by the number of available spaces.
A strategic decision therefore needs to be made about the size
and location of the IRC estate over the next decade and longer.
The then Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, in a statement
made in January, accepted the broad thrust of Shaws
recommendations, and outlined plans to reduce the numbers detained.
Plans for the future shape and size of the detention estate,
he said, would be outlined in the Immigration Enforcements
Business Plan for 2016/17. This elusive business plan remains
unpublished.

It comes as somewhat of a
surprise to learn, then, that the detention centres at Gatwick
Airport (Brook and Tinsley House) are being expanded this summer
by 100 bed spaces."

"The police watchdog
is investigating the arrest of a man who was forcefully restrained
by officers and had a spit hood put over his head after an argument
with his partner.

Video footage showed Ik Aihie
screaming in pain as British Transport police (BTP) officers
held him down on the floor of London Bridge station during the
incident last month. He was approached by officers after his
partner, Jessica McConkey, asked him to give her back her phone,
the couple said.

Police said he was arrested
after he became aggressive and, during the arrest,
that Aihie also threatened to spit at officers."

"Secrets of a Police
Marksman (Channel 4) was on our screens days after a US presidential
candidate seemed to incite gun-owners to assassination. In the
UK  and everywhere else in the developed world  we
have sanity around guns, which is why Tony Longs story
is exceptional."

"OCCRP, a network of
investigative reporters based in Eastern Europe and Central Asia,
partnered with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN)
to produce "Making a Killing." The investigation found
that Eastern European governments continued to approve mass weapons
exports to countries like Saudi Arabia, despite evidence that
many of these weapons may end up in war-torn countries like Syria.
Even though government leaders insist otherwise, experts told
BIRN and the OCCRP that this trade most likely violates international
law."

"More than 4,000 people
have signed a petition calling for EU chiefs to act over a controversy
involving José Manuel Barroso.

The former European Commission
(EC) president sparked fury when he took up a role with US bank
Goldman Sachs in early July, the latest case in Brussels
long-running revolving doors saga, where senior EU
staff move into the private sector and vice-versa.

Critics say it means former
EU employees can tell business how to lobby Brussels to get the
legislative changes they want."

"With widespread adoption
among law enforcement, advertisers, and even churches, face recognition
has undoubtedly become one of the biggest threats to privacy
out there.

By itself, the ability to
instantly identify anyone just by seeing their face already creates
massive power imbalances, with serious implications for free
speech and political protest. But more recently, researchers
have demonstrated that even when faces are blurred or otherwise
obscured, algorithms can be trained to identify people by matching
previously-observed patterns around their head and body."

"The mayor of Cannes
has introduced a ban on burkinis to ensure security,
the French authorities confirmed.

The local mayor, David Lisnard,
introduced the ban at the French Riviera resort to prohibit beachwear
ostentatiously showing a religious affiliation while France and
places of religious significance are the target of terror attacks.

The ruling says: Access
to beaches and for swimming is banned to anyone who does not
have (swim wear) which respects good customs and secularism."

"Those challenges include
a deeply ingrained prejudice against Roma people prevalent in
Italian society, xenophobia stirred by ultraright groups across
Europe, and resistance from the more tradition-minded members
of the Roma community.

In theory, Italys national
policy aims to integrate the Roma, in accordance with European
Union recommendations. In practice, results have been negligible,
and municipal governments instead fund and maintain the construction
of Roma camps in major cities throughout the country.

The camps have drawn criticism
for violating Roma rights. They not only fail to meet minimum
standards for adequate housing, but also reinforce Roma segregation,
said Carlo Stasolla, the president of Associazione 21 Luglio,
a nonprofit organization that works for Roma people."

"Polands Constitutional
Tribunal ruled Thursday that a new law regulating its own functioning
is in part unconstitutional  a decision that threatens
to escalate its long-running row with the right-wing Polish government.

The Law and Justice party
(PiS) government has already refused to recognize the tribunals
negative verdict delivered in March on an earlier version of
a law regulating how the court should organize its work. Last
month the PiS-dominated parliament passed a new law  formally
approved on July 30 and due to take effect on August 16 
spelling out the functioning of the 15-judge tribunal.

The regulation was challenged
by Polish opposition parties, who sent it to the tribunal for
scrutiny, which prompted Thursdays verdict."

"Editor's Note: The Islamic
State emerged as social media was taking off around the globe,
and endless news stories and pundit commentary discusses its
skill at mastering this new form of communication. While the
ubiquity of Islamic State social media propaganda is clear, its
effect is more contested. Seamus Hughes of George Washington's
Program on Extremism argues the role of the Internet is real
but overblown. If we want to stop terrorist recruitment, it still
requires a focus on stopping in-person contact."

CZECH REPUBLIC: Compensation
deal agreed for Roma victims of holocaust(Prague Daily
Monitor, link): "The living survivors of the Czech Romany
Holocaust will get 2500 euros each in compensation as a result
of negotiations between the Czech and German foreign ministries,
Michaela Lagronova, spokeswoman for the Czech ministry, told
CTK yesterday.

"The negotiations lasted
several months and they ended several days ago," she said.

The compensation may be paid
out to 10 to 15 people, Lagronova said.

German authorities earmarked
50 million euros for the compensation by 2018. The same sum of
2500 euros will also be paid to Germans subjected to forced labour
during World War Two, including Sudeten Germans who were forced
to work in Czech territory."

CZECH REPUBLIC: Financial
police to be formed at beginning of 2017(Prague Daily
Monitor, link): "The creation of a financial police body
will be the next step to be taken within the National Centre
against Organised Crime (NCOZ) on January 1, 2017, Czech Interior
Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) told journalists
yesterday.

Deputy Police President Zdenek
Laube said in this respect, the NCOZ would have to agree on the
division of work with the customs authority whose powers were
recently widened.

"We are ready to negotiate
with the Finance Ministry, the customs authority, state attorneys
and the professional public," Chovanec said.
The financial police are to primarily focus on tax or "white
collar" crime."

RÚV has reported that
many Icelanders woke up on Saturday morning to discover flyers
delivered to their homes from the NRM, a violent white power
movement originating in Sweden, actively looking for Icelandic
recruits."

Rome police chief Nicolò
D'Angelo said there would be the highest level of security around
the Colosseum, with police positioned at public entrance points,
as well as the nearby Via del Corso, Romes main shopping
thoroughfare."

CST recorded 557 anti-Semitic
incidents in the first six months of this year, in contrast with
500 last year. This marks the second-highest total the charity
has ever recorded for the JanuaryJune period of any year.
"

Faizah Shaheen, who helps
prevent teenage mental health patients from becoming radicalised,
was returning from honeymoon in Marmaris, Turkey, when she was
stopped by South Yorkshire Police at Doncaster Airport on 25
July. "

Colnbrook detention centre,
near Heathrow Airport, detains up to 396 migrants, including
27 women who are held in a separate unit. The centre suffered
from a lack of maintenance during the period of management contract
transfer from Serco to Mitie a few years ago, resulting in significant
deterioration of parts of the centre."

UK: Cops
& immigration officers organise sting operation in Deptford
with bait immigration van(Anti-Raids Network,
link): "A van marked Immigration Enforcement
was parked down a side street. As is often the case, there was
no sign of any immigration officers in or near the van. Two people
stopped to look at the sight of the racist van that
had returned yet again to the neighbourhood, before walking on.
Seconds later, half a dozen cops dressed as builders  high
viz jackets, muddy Timberland boots, paint-spattered clothes,
pencil behind the ear  jumped the pair, shouting that they
were under arrest for supposedly damaging or tampering with the
van. One of the undercover officers had been standing in the
street and the others had obviously been hiding behind the wall.
There is no evidence of any damage to the van, nor were the people
arrested in possession of anything that could cause damage to
the vehicle. In fact, video footage clearly shows the van undamaged
and being driven off by an officer after the arrests, and many
witnesses are recorded as stating that there was simply nothing
wrong with it. The arrestees were taken to Lewisham police station
and released on bail without charge 10 hours later."

MI5 wrongly claimed it had
been granted a unique exemption, by former home secretary Theresa
May, from applying privacy safeguards to access databases containing
data on the publics private phone, email and web browsing
activities."

The figures were revealed
in a Freedom of Information request by Sky News, as campaigners
called for the centres to be closed.

The Home Office says the number
of asylum seekers being held in detention centres has increased
from 25,904 in 2010 to 32,000 people last year.

Our figures show that in 2010,
there were 185 incidents of self-harm in detention centres.

By 2015, that number had more
than doubled to 409."

UK:Seriously
ill detainee was shackled hours before he died(The Guardian,
link): "The Home Office has been forced to disclose the
results of a damning internal inquiry into the treatment of a
seriously ill immigration detainee who was handcuffed and chained
in hospital until shortly before he died.

The report, which has been
passed to the Guardian, raises fundamental questions about the
treatment of ill and vulnerable detainees. It identifies a failure
in the Home Offices duty of care towards a 43-year-old
man with a heart condition who was handcuffed while he was sedated,
criticises a serious breakdown in communication and
calls for significant changes in the use of restraints on detainees
in hospital."

USA: Microsoft
Pitches Technology That Can Read Facial Expressions at Political
Rallies
(The Intercept, link): "On the 21st floor of a high-rise
hotel in Cleveland, in a room full of political operatives, Microsofts
Research Division was advertising a technology that could read
each facial expression in a massive crowd, analyze the emotions,
and report back in real time. You could use this at a Trump
rally, a sales representative told me."

11 Police Robots Patrolling Around the
World (Wired, link):
"Law enforcement across the globe use semi-autonomous
technology to do what humans find too dangerous, boring, or just
cant. This week, the Cleveland Police had a few nonlethal
ones on hand at the Republican National Convention. But even
those can be outfitted to kill, as we saw in Dallas earlier this
month when police strapped a bomb to an explosive-detonation
robot, and boom: a non-lethal robot became a killer. If that
thought scares you, youre not alone. Human rights activists
worry these robots lack social awareness crucial to decision-making.
For example, during mass protests in Egypt in January 2011
the army refused to fire on protesters, an action that required
innate human compassion and respect for the rule of law,
said Rasha Abdul Rahim of Amnesty International in a statement
last year arguing that the UN should ban killer robots. More
than a thousand robotics experts, including Elon Musk and Stephen
Hawking, signed a letter last summer warning against machines
that can select targets without human control. We wanted to find
out just how many of these things are in use around the world.
But law enforcement isnt exactly forthcoming about the
topic, so this list is not exhaustive. Heres what we found."

EU: Terrorism
Scares Away the Tourists Europe Was Counting On (New
York Times, link): "The shocks have come one after another:
Islamic State killings of civilians in Brussels and Nice. A deadly
outburst of terrorism in Germany. A fresh terror-linked atrocity
in a small French town. Warnings abound that more may be on the
way.

The surge of attacks in Europe
has raised questions over whether a potentially durable new threat
to stability is settling in. The political challenges for Europes
leaders are stark, and the impact on the regions economy
may be just as profound."

FRANCE:French
PM open to temporary ban on foreign financing of mosques(RT, link): "French Prime Minister Manuel Valls says
he is considering a temporary ban on the foreign financing of
mosques after a series of attacks reportedly perpetrated by Islamic
State, including the recent Nice tragedy and the killing of a
priest at French church.

Speaking to Le Monde newspaper,
Valls said that France needs to re-think its relationship with
Islam."

Germany deliberates anti-terror response(Deutsche
Welle, link): "Following multiple terror strikes across
Germany, Bavarian authorities plan to boost the police force
and use the army to help secure borders. Soldiers, however, warn
that the Bundeswehr is no "auxiliary police."

The Munich cabinet wants to
have more experts "monitoring extremists," and to recruit
more people for "special police forces," according
to a strategy paper published on Wednesday.

Also, the state authorities
want a bigger and better-equipped police force with electric
Tasers, new weapons and batons, as well as "protective vests
and titanium helmets that could withstand a shot from a Kalashnikov,"
they said in the 18-page document called "Law and Security
Offensive."

Munich also expects "other
states and the federal government" to boost their police
forces."

UK-POLAND: More
Poles deported from UK: report (Radio Poland, link):
"While in 2005 only eight Poles were deported and 47
denied entrance to the UK at its borders, in 2015 a total of
951 Poles were sent back home and 308 not allowed to cross the
British border, the daily reported.

According to the paper, the
number of Poles living in Britain has grown during the last ten
years, but not at the same rate as the deportation figures."

BELGIUM: Brussels
terrorist scare finished - suspicious person was student doing
research(Flanders News, link): "The Muntplein
and surrounding streets in central Brussels were evacuated for
most of the afternoon. This happened after a suspicious-looking
person had been spotted in the area. On a particularly hot day,
a man was seen wearing a long coat with wires coming out from
underneath. However, after several hours of red alert, the suspect
turned out to be a student measuring radiation and air waves.
This also explains the belt and wiring system he was carrying
on his body."

Bulgaria MPs Seek Ban on Foreign Preachers (Balkan Insight, link): "Foreign
citizens will be banned from preaching in Bulgaria, as well as
preaching in any other language other than Bulgarian, according
to changes to the Religious Denominations Act, filed by the nationalist
coalition the Patriotic Front on Thursday.

Denmark sent sensitive health data to
Chinese by mistake(Reuters, link): "Sensitive
health information about almost the entire population of Denmark
ended up in the wrong hands when a letter by mistake was sent
to a Chinese visa office in Copenhagen, the Danish Data Protection
Agency said on Wednesday.

The incident happened when
two unencrypted CDs containing the data was sent last year by
the Serum Institute, a public enterprise under the Danish health
ministry, in an envelope to the country's statistics office.

However, the envelope ended
up instead at the Chinese Visa Application Service Centre in
Copenhagen, a few hundred meters from the statistics office."

EU: Visegrad
Group plans joint proposal on EU reforms (Radio Poland,
link): "The Visegrad Group  which groups the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia  is to present its
proposals at an informal EU summit in the Slovak capital Bratislava
on 16 September.

The prime minister of Slovakia,
Robert Fico, said on Thursday that details of the proposals are
to be worked out at meeting of the Visegrad Group in Poland in
late August and early September.

Polish Prime Minister Beata
Szydlo said British voters recent decision in a referendum
to leave the EU was a "warning signal" that should
trigger debate on reforming EU institutions."

UK: Cautious
welcome given to 'Hillsborough law' pledge (Bradford
Telegraph & Argus, link): "KEIGHLEY businessman Trevor
Hicks, whose two teenage daughters were killed in the Hillsborough
football disaster, has given a cautious welcome to a Government
pledge to make senior police officers accountable after they
have retired.

The commitment to introduce
a so-called "Hillsborough law," which would allow officers
to face disciplinary proceedings in the "most serious misconduct
cases" years after they have left the force, came during
the second reading in the House of Lords of the Policing and
Crime Bill.

A Government spokesman said
it could not be right that a police officer who knew they were
to face a serious complaint could avoid being held to account
by resigning or retiring."

A written
ministerial statement today announced the closure of Cedars,
a removal centre for families run by the charity Barnardos.
Instead, the people who would have been sent there will be moved
to a discrete unit at Tinsley House removal centre,
near Gatwick.

Discrete or
not, the children of those families will be back in an immigration
detention centre."

Bulgaria, France, Georgia,
Greece, Lithuania, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, the Netherlands,
Portugal, the Russian Federation, Switzerland, the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Ukraine have signed
the Council of Europe Convention on an Integrated Safety, Security
and Service Approach at Football Matches and Other Sports Events.

The international sports treaty,
designed to ensure stadia are safer, more secure and welcoming,
was launched at the Stade de France in Paris on 3 July, at the
UEFA European Football Championship quarter final match between
France and Iceland."

Scotland strongly backed remaining
in the EU in the 23 June referendum on the UKs membership
of the bloc, by 62% to 38%. All 32 of Scotlands local authorities
voted to remain but other UK member countries England and Wales
voted for Brexit.

The SNPs two members
of the European Parliament are part of the Greens-European Free
Alliance parliamentary group. The EFA has MEPs from pro-Catalan,
Galician, Basque and Corsican independence parties.

But the SNP is considering
splitting from the group  sacrificing funding and speaking
time  so as not to become enmeshed in the question of Catalan
secession from Spain."

On July 7, 2016, President
Vladimir Putin signed into law two sets of legislative amendments
after they were rushed through parliament without adequate debate
or scrutiny. The amendments are commonly referred to as the Yarovaya
Law, after their key author, Irina Yarovaya, a leading
member of the ruling United Russia party. They include
numerous deeply disturbing provisions that severely undermine
the right to privacy and are particularly detrimental to freedom
of expression on the Internet. The new regulations will take
effect on July 1, 2018. Russia should repeal the new law, Human
Rights Watch said."

Represented by Malcolm Hawkes,
VS was wanted to serve a 12-year prison sentence for multiple
offences of armed robbery, murder and terrorism committed between
1980-1981. He was tried and convicted in his absence in 1989
on the sole basis of evidence from co-accused whose evidence
could not be challenged. Under the Italian law in force at the
time, the defence could not cross-examine prosecution witnesses,
who did not even have to swear that their evidence was true.
These witnesses were able to obtain discounted sentences in exchange
for their testimony."

Lawyers for Lawrence Green
told the high court on Tuesday that an investigation by the IPCC
 the police watchdog  that dismissed his allegations
was illogical, hasty and flawed.

Green, 26, has alleged that
police sprayed CS gas into his face at close range, causing him
excruciating pain and temporarily blinding him, in
contravention of national guidelines.

He is claiming that the IPCC
failed to investigate his allegations independently and fairly."

USA: Will
a Camera on Every Cop Make Everyone Safer? Taser Thinks So(Bloomberg, link): "Cop cams are inextricably tied
to Taser, by far the dominant supplier, and the company will
likely shape whatever the devices evolve into. For Taser, the
cameras are more than just a new product category. Founded at
one national moment of police angst, the company is using another
such moment to transform from a manufacturer into a technology
company. From a business perspective, body cameras are low-margin
hunks of plastic designed to get police departments using the
real moneymaker: Evidence.com, which provides the software and
cloud services for managing all the footage the devices generate.
Taser markets these tools under the Axon brand. About 4.6 petabytes
of video have been uploaded to the platform, an amount comparable
to Netflixs entire streaming catalog. All of it must be
preserved to an evidentiary standard. The company can sell a
weapon or camera once, but cloud services are billed year after
year."

EU: Fraud
allegations taint Slovak EU presidency (EUobserver, link):
"The Slovak government has launched its EU Council presidency
against a backdrop of street protests and opposition attempts
to dismiss the prime minister and interior minister over alleged
links to a tax fraud scandal.

On Wednesday (6 July), as
prime minister Robert Fico in Strasbourg unveiled the priorities
of Slovakia's six-month term at the EU helm, the country's national
parliament was preparing to debate his own dismissal over opposition
claims that he covered up corruption."

Thirteen members of the AfD,
including the co-leader of the party that is currently polling
between 9% and 14%, walked out of its parliamentary group in
the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg on Wednesday
in protest at the failure to expel fellow MP Wolfgang Gedeon.

Comments made by Gedeon in
a book published in 2012 surfaced in the media after he entered
state parliament following regional elections in March."

GERMANY: Public
Insults of German Police Protected by Free Speech(Liberties.eu,
link): "Proclaiming "ACAB" ("all cops
are bastards") publicaly is not directly punishable, as
determined by freedom of expression. This was decided by the
Federal Constitutional Court in two cases about football fans
who held a sign reading "ACAB" or wore it on their
trousers. Laws on defamation, such as section 185 of the Criminal
Code, can limit the right to freedom of expression. However,
the statement must refer to a manageable and defined group of
people. The Court considered that the statements were not directed
against certain individual officers."

SPAIN: CATALONIA: El
Parlament da luz verde a los Mossos para disparar pistolas eléctricas[Parliament gives the green light for the Mossos to fire
electric pistols] (El Diario. link): The Catalan parliament has
given permission for the Mossos d'Esquadra (the Catalan
regional police force) to use Tasers, following four months of
debate in the Catalan parliament.

We did some work on Dines
current career as well, and found out that a UK professor teaching
public order and crowd control to police forces at the course
in India decided to quit when he realised Dines was one of the
#spycops in the current undercover policing scandal  see
below."

Thomas Morris, 31, from Emberton,
is the sixth person to die at the trouble-plagued jail in seven
months."

UN condemns internet access disruption
as a human rights violation(The Verge,
link): "The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed
a non-binding resolution condemning countries that intentionally
disrupt citizens' internet access. The resolution builds on the
UN's previous statements on digital rights, reaffirming the organization's
stance that "the same rights people have offline must also
be protected online," in particular the freedom of expression
covered under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights."

The court president, Gerhart
Holzinger, announced on Friday that the run-off vote between
Hofer of the Freedom party and Green-backed Alexander Van der
Bellen would have to be repeated across the whole country after
an investigation revealed irregularities in the count of the
vote in several constituencies.

The unprecedented ruling comes
a week before Van der Bellen was due to be sworn into office.

Hofer had lost out to his
rival in a knife-edge election on 22 May, with a majority of
only 30,863 votes."

EU: Big
data revolutionises Europes fight against terrorism
(EurActiv, link): "The threat of terrorism has greatly
accelerated the exchange of data between European states. Social
media has become indispensable, both for investigative purposes
and to fight propaganda. EurActiv France reports.

The Fraternity Taskforce,
a group of some 20 investigators, has been probing into the Paris
attacks of 13 November 2015 since late last year. But this team,
based at Europol headquarters in The Hague, has no high-tech
surveillance equipment or bullet-proof vests. Its main weapon
and its biggest resource is data, vast quantities of data."

Former military technicians
Cian Westmoreland and Lisa Ling both worked on the high-tech
infrastructure on which the drones flying in Afghanistan rely.
They have now come forward as critics of the US drone programme.

At an event this week, they
spoke about strategic flaws in the drone programme and the risks
of civilian casualties in drone warfare. On Thursday, they attended
the parliamentary hearing where campaigners spoke of the impact
of drones on civilian populations and the lack of compensation
or recognition of their losses for the families of those killed
and wounded."

GERMANY: Online
hate speech, conspiracy theories boom in Germany (Deutsche
Welle, link): " Online racist abuse and hate speech have
exploded in Germany in the past 18 months, a new report by the
anti-racism foundation Antonio Amadeu Stiftung (AAS) has found,
with calls for violence against refugees, false stories and rumors
about their crimes, and neo-Nazi slogans (often disguised to
avoid litigation) all on the rise.

The 22-page report, released
this week, also found a connection not only with the increase
in violence against refugees and refugee homes, but also with
an increase in "conspiracy-ideology" attacks on politicians,
journalists and volunteers helping refugees."

POLAND: New
Anti-terrorism Law Allows Blocking of Online Media(Council
of Europe, link): " A new anti-terrorism law came into
effect on 22 June 2016 after it was ratified by the Polish President
Andrzej Duda. The law was successfully passed by two parliamentary
chambers of the Sejm earlier this month. The law gives Polands
intelligence agency, the ABW (Agencja Bezpieczenstwa Wewnetrznego),
the right to order the blocking or demand that the electronic
open source service administrator block access to information
data, thereby giving the agency the right to shut down
online media outlets, including websites and television programmes,
Kulisy24 reported."

SCOTLAND: UNDERCOVER POLICING:
Scottish
Government refuses to commit to spying inquiry(The Scotsman,
link): "The Scottish Government has refused to commit
to setting up an inquiry into controversial undercover policing
practices should an existing probe not be extended north of the
Border.

Justice secretary Michael
Matheson has already written to the Home Office calling for the
Undercover Policing Inquiry, led by Sir Christopher Pitchford,
to be extended to Scotland.

Undercover operatives working
for the Metropolitan Police, including notorious officer Mark
Kennedy, are known to have spied on political activists in Scotland
during the G8 summit in 2005.

But during a debate in the
Scottish Parliament yesterday, legal affairs minister Annabelle
Ewing repeatedly refused to commit to a separate Scottish inquiry,
should Home Secretary Theresa May not extend the UPI."

UK: Minister
questioned on Counter Extremism Bill(parliament.uk,
link): "The purpose of this evidence session is to enable
the Committee to question Karen Bradley MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State at the Home Office responsible for counter-extremism
policy, about human rights issues arising in the context of the
Governments counter-extremism strategy and proposed legislation."

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan,
announced the sale nearly a year after the home secretary, Theresa
May, blocked their deployment on the streets of London.

Her ruling was hugely embarrassing
for Johnson, Khans predecessor, who had authorised the
purchase of the second-hand equipment from the German police
before they were cleared for use."

US Customs wants to collect social media
account names at the border(The Verge,
link): "Your Twitter handle may soon be part of the US
visa process. Yesterday, US Customs and Border Protection entered
a new proposal into the federal register, suggesting a new field
in which persons entering the country can declare their various
social media accounts and screen names. The information wouldnt
be mandatory, but the proposed field would still provide customs
officials with an unprecedented window into the online life of
travelers. The process already includes fingerprinting, an in-person
interview, and numerous database checks.

The proposal focuses on arrival
/ departure forms commonly collected from non-citizens at the
US border, as well as the electronic form used for anyone entering
the country under a visa waiver. Under the proposed changes,
those forms would include a new optional data field prompting
visitors to "please enter information associated with your
online presence," followed by open fields for specific platforms
and screen names."

Nine other suspects arrested
during the major anti-terror operation overnight on Friday have
since been released. The operation came amid heightened security
in Belgium and France around the Euro 2016 soccer tournament
and just three months after extremist bombers wrought carnage
in Brussels."

CYPRUS: Combatting
terrorism a priority for the government, minister says
(Cyprus Mail, link): "Combatting terrorism in cooperation
with other players on the international stage is a top priority
of the government according to Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou
who was speaking in Nicosia at the opening of an international
police conference on counter-terrorism on Thursday.

Dealing with terrorism
is one of the highest priorities set by this government. Cyprus
is fully aware of the asymmetric terrorist threat and dangers
deriving from its geographical position, of the fact that it
is close to war zones, of the activities of European and non-European
foreign fighters, as well as of the presence of western and other
foreign interests in Cyprus Nicolaou said.

He was speaking on behalf
of President Nikos Anastasiades at the opening of the two-day
conference entitled Counter-terrorism Policies for Law Enforcement:
International and Comparative Perspectives."

EU to adopt new US data rules in July (EUobserver, link): "The European
Commission is set to present a new draft of its data-exchange
pact with the US, the Privacy Shield, in early July.

EU justice commissioner Vera
Jourova told EUobserver in a recent interview that the most contentious
issues had been agreed by Washington and Brussels.

These concerned access to
data by US security services, bulk collection of peoples
personal information and independent oversight."

EU: Europes
rude awakening to big data politics (EurActiv, link):
"To many in the Brussels bubble, the big data revolution
came as a rude awakening, with revelations of mass-scale eavesdropping
by US intelligence. Although EU policymakers have now embraced
the economic potential of big data, privacy fears are never far
in the distance."

In a document obtained by
AFP, the Secretary General of the European Parliament, Klaus
Welle, says the founder of Frances far-right National Front
(FN) party should reimburse the money unduly paid
to him for his parliamentary assistant between 2009 and 2014.

It said Le Pen had offered
neither an explanation for nor any evidence of parliamentary
assistance work carried out by the member of staff."

According to an amendment
to an anti-terror law due to be voted on by parliament on Friday,
the age of suspects that Germany's domestic intelligence agency
is allowed to track and collect data on will be reduced from
16 to 14."

He was pronounced dead following
an altercation with up to nine officers in a street near his
home on May 3, 2015.

Pathologists, including two
who worked on the Hillsborough inquiry, have carried out extensive
tests since then to try to find what caused his death.

Family members believe Sheku,
31, died from positional asphyxiation caused by the actions of
the officers involved."

UK: Clegg
unaware of GCHQ monitoring parliamentary emails (Computer
Weekly, link): "Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg
has admitted he was unaware that GCHQ could scan parliamentary
emails for national security or crime-detection purposes while
he was in office."

US releases Guantanamo inmate to Montenegro (Deutsche Welle, link): "A Yemeni
man held at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay has been
released to Montenegro. Seventy-nine prisoners are still being
held at the notorious facility the Obama administration has vowed
to close down."

Romania had only proposed
joint actions and training with the aim to boost defence capabilities,
Nenchev told Bulgarian broadcaster Nova TV on Friday.

No proposal had been made
to Bulgaria to establish a joint naval force in the Black Sea
with Romania and Turkey; no participation had been offered to
non-NATO Ukraine either, Nenchev added."

BULGARIA: Fears
Grow of Clashes at Bulgaria Pride March (Balkan Insight,
link): "Tensions have grown ahead of the Sofia Pride
in support of LGBTI people on Sunday, after the municipality
gave the go-ahead for ultra-nationalists to stage a counter-protest
at the same time in the centre of the capital.

The routes of the two marches
will even meet at one location, which worries the organizers
of the Pride in terms of the safety of their supporters.

One month after we notified
the municipality [about the Pride parade] we were aghast to learn
that the route of the traditional counter demonstration against
the march is going to coincide with some parts of the route of
the Pride, Radoslav Stoyanov, member of the organizational
committee of Sofia Pride, told BIRN on Friday."

Her proposals, which were
generally welcomed by committee members, are designed to pave
the way for formal negotiations to start on the draft legislation
between Parliament, the Commission and member states."

EASTERN/CENTRAL EUROPE: Visegrád
Group to contribute company of soldiers to NATO Baltic mission
(Politics.hu, link): "Countries in the Visegrád
Group(V4) will add a company of soldiers to NATOs mission
in the Baltic aera, the Hungarian defence ministry said. The
security of NATO members in the Baltics has considerably worsened
in wake of the Ukraine crisis. In such a situation federal
solidarity is extremely important, and Visegrád
countries want to make a tangible contribution to efforts aimed
at ensuring the security of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, it
said. Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and Slovak units will take three-month
turns and will hold joint exercises with local forces, the statement
said."

Sami A. has already had his
asylum application rejected by the German authorities and has
been handed a deportation order.

But the 39-year-old, who prosecutors
allege traveled to Afghanistan in the late 1990s, where he worked
as Osama bin Ladens bodyguard, will be allowed to stay
in Germany after the administrative court in Gelsenkirchen ruled
on Wednesday that he cannot be sent back to his home country
of Tunisia."

The Central Council of Jews
in Germany appealed to the auction house Hermann Historica to
cancel the controversial sale of Nazi relics planned for Saturday
in the southern city of Munich."

Macedonia Braces as Protesters' Deadline
Looms(Balkan Insight, link): "Two
days before the deadline expires for a fresh wave of protests,
supporters of Macedonia's Colourful Revolution blocked
three key bridges in Skopje and painted a giant number two on
the city's Goce Delcev bridge as a reminder.

The actions took place as
protesters found out that one of their key demands, which is
for the Constitutional Court to guarantee that it will not rule
the Special Prosecution - tasked to investigate high-level crime
- unconstitutional, is unlikely to be met in the coming days.

The court's web page significantly
did not include this motion on the agenda for next weeks
sessions."

Prisoners at Castle Huntly
were not given "continuity of care" because health
workers were moved between different prisons to cover shifts.

A report by the HM Inspectorate
of Prisons for Scotland said the site health centre did not offer
the range of services and health promotion which was expected.

Concerns were also raised
about how controlled drugs were issued, as in some cases only
one signatory was present when there should have been two."

Spains influence in Brussels shrinks
under Rajoy (El País,
link): "Rajoy has been apathetic during every visit to
the European capital, in contrast with the proactive attitudes
of his foreign and economy ministers, José Manuel García-Margallo
and Luis de Guindos. The rest of his cabinet are nowhere to be
seen. Spain may head the global unemployment charts, but the
acting labor minister, Fátima Báñez, has
missed half the EU meetings on the subject."

SWITZERLAND: Swiss
civil society struggles against digital surveillance laws
(EDRi, link): "In June 2016, Swiss civil society activists
are redoubling their efforts to collect signatures in support
of a referendum vote on the revision of a surveillance law best
known under the German acronym BÜPF, federal law concerning
surveillance of postal communications and telecommunications.
This revision would legalise surveillance by means of IMSI catchers
(fake relay antennas for mobile phone) and govware trojans (spyware
used by the government). It would require even private persons
and associations to be subject to internet wiretapping on their
premises, mailservers, etc."

It has previously been reported
that Ndricim Sadushi, 43, was on the run for 15 years after being
convicted in his absence of three murders and one attempted killing
in Albania in 1997.

The jury at Southwark Coroners
Court came to the conclusion Mr Sadushi, a builder, did not intend
to kill himself.

But it did find the condition
of his cell, which was covered in faeces and urine, and him being
mute may have contributed to his death around 7am on January
20, 2014. "

UK: Lords
question creating new criminal offences by regulation(The Law Society Gazette, link): "A House of Lords
committee has criticised the government for introducing legislation
heavily reliant on delegated powers, questioning a bill which
would enable ministers to create new criminal offences by
regulation instead of being subject to full and proper
parliamentary scrutiny.

The constitution committee,
which assesses the impact of a public bill, also investigates
wider constitutional issues, publishing reports with recommendations
principally aimed at the government.

In its report on the Children
and Social Work Bill, which has its second reading today, the
committee says the bills provisions appear to continue
a trend of introducing legislation that leaves
much to the subsequent discretion of ministers."

James Sullivan, 27, was found
dead in his cell at Lowdham Grange prison in Nottinghamshire
on 24 March . He was serving a life sentence for the murder of
his partner.

Prisoners at the jail have
told the Guardian they were worried about Sullivans mental
state and checked up on him when their cells were unlocked shortly
after 8am."

UK: Race
failures are damaging the police, says top Met officer(The
Guardian, link): "Scotland Yards new head of diversity
has said the Met still treats black people worse than white people
on the street and blights the careers of its own ethnic minority
staff by racially discriminating against them.

Ch Supt Victor Olisa said
discrimination by officers includes negative typecasting of black
people, leading to more force and coercive tactics being used
against them by officers in the street.

In a Guardian interview, the
Mets most senior black officer said: My view is that
on occasions we work on stereotypes and that stereotypes of black
men being more aggressive, more confrontational, is a stereotype
that plays on some officers minds and that can lead to
a different level of policing style and force being used on a
black suspect than it probably would do otherwise."

USA: The
Danger of Corporate Facial Recognition Tech(Electronic
Frontier Foundation, link): "Supporters of unregulated
corporate facial recognition systems are waging a sneak attack
against our nations strongest protection of biometric privacy.
On one side are business interests seeking to profit by using
invasive facial recognition technologies to identify and track
vast numbers of people without their consent. On the other side
are EFF and many other digital privacy and consumer rights organizations.
Our side won the latest round. But the future of biometric privacy
will require all of our constant vigilance."

EU: Germany
blocks Georgia's EU visa bid (EUobserver, link): "Germany
has delayed Georgias bid to get EU visa-free travel in
a political decision to be closely watched in Ukraine and beyond.

Germany, supported by France
and Italy, said No to the move at an EU ambassadors meeting
in Brussels on Wednesday (8 June). They did it the same day that
Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili was in the EU capital
to lobby for a Yes.

Berlin said the German public
was worried about a recent spate of home burglaries by Georgian
criminal groups in Germany, diplomatic sources said."

The UN Human Rights Committee
called on Ireland to "amend" its abortion laws and
if necessary its constitution to protect patients and health
workers who fear criminal punishment for even providing information
about terminating a pregnancy."

UK: Andy
Burnham calls for 'toxic' Prevent strategy to be scrapped(The Guardian, link): "The duty on public bodies
to report signs of radicalisation, included in the governments
strategy to counter Islamist extremism, is todays equivalent
of internment in Northern Ireland, the shadow home secretary,
Andy Burnham, has said, calling for the strategy to be scrapped.

In a speech to the Chamber
of Commerce in Manchester, Burnham called for a cross-party review
of the Prevent strategy, but said his personal view was that
the policy should be discarded. I do feel that the brand
is so toxic now that I think its got to go, he said.

Burnham also announced Labours
intention to oppose the governments extremism bill, which
was unveiled in last months Queens speech. It contains
new powers to ban extremist organisations, gag individuals
and enable local councils to close premises used to promote
hatred."

UK: Police
continue to stall in Undercover relationships case (Police
Spies Out of Lives, link): "On Tuesday 7th June, a legal
case over undercover police relationships was in the High Court.
It was the latest battle in a four year campaign to hold the
police to account, and in it the police continued to try to stall
these civil proceedings and avoid disclosing evidence. The claimants,
two women and a man [1], are suing The Metropolitan Police, South
Wales Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers over
sexual abuse committed by an undercover police officer in Cardiff
 Marco Jacobs. [2]

Significantly, the Police
backed down from asserting a blanket Neither confirm nor
deny policy (NCND) to resist disclosing documents relevant
to the case, and have now been directed by the court to apply
by 23rd September 2016, if they wish, to withhold disclosing
documents on the ground that it would damage the public interest."

UK: The
Immigration Act 2016 In Plain English (RightsInfo, link):
"On 12 May 2016, the Immigration Act 2016 came into force,
making it officially UK law. The Act focusses on illegal migration
and punitive measures for those who dont play by
the rules. Its a massive new law and brings with
it major revisions of the immigration system. Here are the key
changes in plain-English."

USA: British
firm aims to open immigration detention center near US-Mexico
border (The Guardian, link): "The British security
firm Serco has moved a step closer to entering the controversial
but lucrative immigration detention market in the US, as the
company successfully lobbied public officials in a small Texas
county near the Mexico border to propose that the federal government
open a family detention centre in the jurisdiction.

The billion-dollar company,
implicated in numerous immigration detention centre scandals
in the UK and Australia, has been lobbying the US government
for more than a year in an effort to win detention contracts,
sparking sustained criticism from immigrant rights groups.

The firm is now proposing
that a shuttered nursing home in Jim Wells County, Texas, be
reopened as a family detention centre, which could hold up to
600 detainees and would become the third privately managed centre
in the United States."

Austrian far-right wants to probe election fraud
accusations(EUobserver, link): "After losing
the presidential race by just 31,026 votes, far-right candidate
Hofer said his FPO party would examine "countless"
cases of election fraud. "There are lots of indications
coming from voters, and so far five criminal complaints where
the law was obviously broken," he told the Kronen-Zeitung
daily on Sunday."

German rightwing party apologises for
Jérôme Boateng comments(The Guardian,
link): "Germanys anti-immigration party Alternative
für Deutschland (AfD) has apologised after its deputy leader
was quoted as saying that, while most people admired the international
footballer Jérôme Boateng, they wouldnt want
to live next door to him."

In an unprecedented initiative
likely to spark fierce debate in Spain, Dr Pelai Pagès,
professor of history at the University of Barcelona and president
of the Association of the International Museum of the Spanish
Civil War (Amigce), has written to the citys leftwing mayor,
Ada Colau, asking that a building be set aside in central Barcelona
to house the museum and a research centre. Pagès told
the Observer: Eighty years after the start of the civil
war, and 40 years after the death of General Franco, recovering
the memory of what happened for all generations, from the youngest
to the oldest, means understanding the conflict in its totality.
There is a sad old saying that a society that forgets its past
is destined to repeat it. From this perspective, the International
Museum of the Spanish Civil War intends to act as a guarantee
for the future."

Spanish election goes Venezuelan (EUobserver, link): "A month
ahead of the next Spanish election, the economic and political
crisis in Venezuela has become central to debate.

The situation in the South
American country was discussed at a national security meeting
on Friday by Mariano Rajoy's caretaker government.

Critics said the move was
designed to grab votes by attacking the anti-austerity party
Podemos for its links to the government of deceased Venezuelan
president Hugo Chavez."

Sweden court upholds arrest warrant for
WikiLeaks founder(Jurist, link): "The
Stockholm District Court [official website, in Swedish] upheld
the arrest warrant [press release] for Julian Assange on Wednesday,
finding he was not illegally detained in absentia. Assange has
been held on allegations of rape [Reuters report] dating back
to 2010. The court found there was probable cause to support
the accusation. Assange has been at the Ecuadorean Embassy in
London for over three years. He fears that Sweden's efforts to
extradite him will result in extradition to the US due to the
fact that his company, WikiLeaks, released thousands of classified
government documents. However, he has not been charged in the
US."

TURKEY: Almost
There(The World Post, link): "While the
world watches in awe or indifference, Turkey is in the midst
of a rough power grab. Dismantling the system from its main elements,
and with a rudderless opposition, Erdogan seems only inches away
from being an autocratic ruler."

Olivier Mondeke Monongo is
trusted by the NHS to work with some of Scotlands most
vulnerable patients, and by Global Language, a contractor to
the Scottish Court Service providing expert interpreters in Glasgow
Sheriff Court.

He is also a serving Pentecostal
minister who gives services in a city church, has five children
born in Scotland and plans to remain here for the rest of his
life.

Yet immigration officials
have rejected the Congolese nationals application for British
citizenship, claiming he has failed the good character
test by breaking a rule that prohibits unpaid work.

The decision rests on voluntary
interpreting work he carried out for the British Red Cross."

Vice News obtained details
of the number of combatants killed or wounded in RAF strikes
each month since Oct 2014. The data shows that just under 1,000
combatants had been killed with almost 100 wounded. While the
MoD are extremely careful to say they cannot validate such casualty
figures as they have no one on the ground, at the same time they
continue to insist that no civilians have been killed in any
of 740 British air strikes which have launched around 1,400 bombs
and missiles."

Public transport, oil refineries
and fuel supplies, nuclear power stations all continued
to be disrupted on Thursday.

The state rail company SNCF
said fewer trains were affected than during a similar strike
last week.

Estimates for the number of
protesters on the streets mirrored the gap between the government
and its opponents: 19,000 in Paris said the authorities; 100,000
was the unions figure.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls
has insisted the government will not withdrawn the law and will
break up the blockades. He has hinted there could be some tweaks
to the reforms but not on any of its key measures."

NETHERLANDS: Shrinking
Civic and Democratic Space(Pakhuis de Zwijger, link):
"We witness worrying trends of systematic crackdown on
civil and individual liberties across Europe. From Hungary to
Spain, from France to Poland, democracy and the freedom of expression
and assembly has been undermined by democratically elected governments.
This escalation of measures has led to recently speaking about
Illiberal democracies. But while Europe remained
silent for a long while in the defense of its founding values,
regressive forces have gained growing audience, with the risk
in the long run to seriously undermine solidarity and trust in
a common future.

The workshop will enquire
civil society capacity to channel democratic frustration into
positive action and resistance to such worrying tendencies."

The missile defence installation
is designed to detect, track, engage, and destroy ballistic missiles
in flight outside the atmosphere. Lockheed Martins Aegis
Ashore is the first operational land-based version of the Aegis
Ballistic Missile Defence system, a sophisticated collection
of phased-array radars, fire control directors, computers and
missiles. The Aegis BMD system has been proven in-theatre for
over 40 years, which meant Lockheed Martin was well placed to
produce the new system for Romania."

Police Scotland had a contract
that expired at the end of March this year to train Sri Lankan
police officers and develop ethical leadership at
its National Police Academy.

The project proved highly
controversial at the outset in 2012 due to Sri Lankas appalling
human rights record but Police Scotland defended the new relationship
at the time, arguing that it was aiming to improve the human
rights situation.

However, a new report from
Freedom from Torture revealed that last year 17 Sri Lankan asylum
seekers  including a child  who were tortured after
President Sirisenas election in January 2015 were referred
to the charity."

UK: Finding
the blacklist (The Independent, link): "Phil
Chamberlain is associate head of department for broadcast and
journalism and teaches investigative journalism to MA students.
He has 20 years of experience writing for national newspapers
and magazines. Here he explains how one article led to an eight-year
investigation to uncover how the UKs biggest construction
companies secretly conspired to deny thousands of people work."

The IPCC independently investigated
the circumstances surrounding the arrest of a 49-year-old man
in Hull on 13 February, 2014 and his detention at Clough Road
police station. The IPCCs investigator expressed the view
that there was a case to answer for the way the man had been
treated by some police and detention officers.

The man, who spoke little
English, was taken in a police van after being arrested. No action
was subsequently taken against him after it was discovered the
allegation was a false report."

According to the public broadcaster
ORF, Norbert Hofer of the rightwing populist Freedom party (FPÖ)
was neck and neck on 50% with his rival Alexander Van der Bellen,
a former Green party leader who is running as an independent.

Postal ballots, accounting
for 14% of eligible voters and expected to favour the left-leaning
candidate, are being tallied on Monday, and a full result is
not expected until Monday afternoon. Fifty per cent and one vote
would suffice to hand the presidency to one of the two candidates.
Data from Austrias interior ministry, which does not take
into account the projected postal vote, put Hofer on 51.9% and
Van der Bellen on 48.1%."

The win of the DISY was expected
but the two most striking news after Sundays elections
was the entering of the National Popular Front (ELAM) in the
parliament and the high level of abstention.

(...)

ELAM is considered the affiliate
party of the Greek Golden Dawn in Cyprus, and it managed to enter
the parliament, gathering 3.71 percent of the vote. ELAM disagrees
with the unification of Cyprus and it wants to increase the power
of the Cypriot military. For the first time, Cyprus will
get nationalists in its parliament, Golden Dawn leader
Nikos Mihaloliakos told Greeces parliament minutes after
the first exit poll results were released.

Political analyst, Huber Faustmann
told Reuters about ELAM that Its sort of a kindergarten
version of Golden Dawn, and he stressed that the elections
results show that all the big parties lost."

FRANCE: Paris
attacks suspect refuses to speak at hearing (Al Jazeera,
link): "The last known survivor of the team that carried
out last November's Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, refused to
talk during questioning by judges amid frustration at 24-hour
video surveillance of his cell, his lawyer said.

The hearing ended abruptly
on Friday, dashing French authorities' hopes that Abdeslam would
provide more details about the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant group's strategies and individuals behind the November
13 attacks.

Abdeslam's lawyer, Frank Berton,
said his client invoked his right to silence. While Abdeslam
did not give a direct reason, Berton said he was "disturbed"
by 24-hour video surveillance in his maximum-security cell in
the Fleury-Merogis prison outside Paris."

The Foreign & Commonwealth
Office (FCO) designated 30 nations as human rights priority
countries last year, warning of their conduct on a range of issues
from internal repression to the use of sexual violence in armed
conflict.

But information released by
ministers shows that British armed forces trained either
security or armed forces personnel in 16 of the listed
countries since 2014."

The extent of the problem
was confirmed as doubts emerged about the viability of the troubled
contract for interpreting services after the outsourcing firm
Capita declined to bid for its renewal in October."

BELGIUM: Intelligence
service monitoring 60 soldiers(Flanders News, link):
"The military intelligence service is keeping a close
eye on 60 soldiers. They allegedly displayed a kind of behaviour
- in one way or another - that could suggest extremist ideas.
The Defence department said that they will no longer be deployed
in armed missions, but they will not be dismissed."

BELGIUM:Prisoners
start new court action against Belgian state(Flanders
News, link): "3 inmates staying in Vorst prison have
initiated court action against the Belgian state. They argue
that their basic rights are being ignored due to the continuing
strike in Brussels and Walloon prisons. The latest complaints
are just 3 more in a whole series. Other prisoners have won similar
cases recently."

EU: Europe's
Rule-of-Law Crisis(Social Europe, link) by Guy Verhofstadt,
ALDE MEP: "Governments are created and fall apart, and
politicians come and go; but democratic institutions should be
spared from political interference. The sad reality is that,
were they to apply for EU membership today, neither Hungary nor
Poland would be admitted. Their people should weigh carefully
what that means. Their current leaders claim to be defending
national interests. But is it really in their countries
interest to be sidelined by the US, NATO, and the rest of Europe?"

EU-UK: Brexit
Vote Worries European Up-and-Comers Lured to Britain
(New York Times, link): "Silvia Luis, from Portugal,
is thinking of attending university in Scotland. Sandra Martinsone,
a Latvian, said she might apply for citizenship or buy property.
Julie Miquerol, from France, has sped up her plans to open a
start-up company in Spain.

They, like some 1.3 million
citizens from other European Union countries between the ages
of 18 and 35 who live in Britain, are hedging their bets and
pondering strategies just in case Britain votes to leave the
European Union on June 23."

The conference in Austria
is being co-chaired by the United States and Italy, Libya's former
colonial ruler which has faced a major influx of migrants and
asylum seekers from the North African nation braving a perilous
sea voyage.

It will "discuss international
support for the new Government of National Accord, with a focus
on security," said John Kirby, spokesman for US Secretary
of State John Kerry, who will chair the conference with his Italian
counterpart Paolo Gentiloni."

Snowden interview: Why the media isnt
doing its job(Columbia Journalism
Review, link): "The Tow Center for Digital Journalisms
Emily Bell spoke to Edward Snowden over a secure channel about
his experiences working with journalists and his perspective
on the shifting media world. This is an excerpt of that conversation,
conducted in December 2015. It will appear in a forthcoming book:
Journalism After Snowden: The Future of the Free Press in the
Surveillance State, which will be released by Columbia University
Press in 2016."

The two-day hearing at the
judicial committee of the privy council (JCPC) in London may
set an international precedent that could prevent the execution
of people on death row who have been diagnosed as intellectually
disabled.

The JCPC, based in Westminster,
acts as an ultimate court of appeal for smaller Commonwealth
countries, including many in the Caribbean that retain capital
punishment. Justices from the UKs supreme court hear its
cases."

On Wednesday major companies,
including Sir Robert McAlpine and Balfour Beatty, issued an unreserved
and sincere apology in the high court to hundreds of workers
for putting them on an illegal blacklist and denying them work
over two decades.

The companies agreed to pay
sums ranging from £25,000 to £200,000 to 771 people
under out-of-court settlements to avoid a trial, while accepting
that their secret vetting operation should never have happened.
However, evidence disclosed before the settlement has led many
of the victims to claim that there was an illegal attempt by
executives at Sir Robert McAlpine to destroy evidence and cover
up the involvement of key individuals when the blacklisting was
discovered in 2009."

Iain Duncan Smith floated
the scheme in October , suggesting a Job Centre advisor should
be posted in food banks, to give people seeking emergency food
parcels advice on how to find work.

The pilot scheme was criticised
at the time, with Labour saying it "highlights the grim
reality that people depending on emergency food is increasingly
a central part of Iain Duncan Smith's vision for our social security
system.""

The deletion sparked accusations
of censorship against the social network, which has often been
accused of siding with the Turkish government in battles over
free speech. But Facebook says it did not delete the page, and
Zed Books has accepted the claim. Both companies say they are
trying to discover how the page was removed from the site, and
who by."

The report, published by Her
Majestys Inspectorate of Prisons, was part of an annual
inspection of Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre.

Ofsted found overall levels
of violence between inmates remained too high, and it also highlighted
how assaults on staff, the number of restraints and the use of
force had increased since the previous inspection in February
2015."

USA: Needed:
More Snowdens - Ex-intel analyst (USA Today, link): "I
was an active duty Marine working in signals intelligence in
2013 when Edward Snowden exposed the mass surveillance programs
of the National Security Agency. Snowdens alleged espionage
had a lasting effect both on my work and on my attitude toward
it.

As a cryptologic linguist
and intelligence analyst, my day-to-day activities were directly
compromised when I was suddenly unable to use certain methods
and tools due to the leak. Not only that, Snowdens action
created a moral dilemma for me as a member of the intelligence
community. I began questioning the morality of my work. If the
public was outraged by what Snowden leaked, will they be outraged
by how the U.S. is fighting terrorism?"

USA: Senate
report on CIA torture is one step closer to disappearing
(Yahoo! News, link): "The CIA inspector generals
office  the spy agencys internal watchdog 
has acknowledged it mistakenly destroyed its only
copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers
for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that
copies of the document were being preserved, Yahoo News has learned.

Although other copies of the
report exist, the erasure of the controversial document by the
CIA office charged with policing agency conduct has alarmed the
U.S. senator who oversaw the torture investigation and reignited
a behind-the-scenes battle over whether the full unabridged report
should ever be released, according to multiple intelligence community
sources familiar with the incident."

The right to covering most
of one's face and body, however, clashes with non-discrimination
and gender equality principles despite the fact that religious
garments are part of the European Convention on Human Rights."

CROATIA: Croatian
Journalists Protest for Freedom of the Press (Liberties.eu,
link): "Around 200 journalists protested in front of
the Croatian Ministry of Culture because of violations of the
freedom of the press. They demanded the resignation of Minister
of Culture Zlatko Hasanbegovic and laid their pencils in front
of a banner with the text of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the article of the Constitution about the freedom
of the media. It was a symbolic act to point out that the government
buried these rights. The Croatian Journalists' Association warned
that, after the last change of government, the level of media
freedom is the lowest in the last 25 years."

EU: Slovakian Presidency of the
Council: Slovakia
to fight EU 'fragmentation'(EUobserver, link): "Slovakia's
main objective when it takes the EU Council presidency in July
will be to avoid "fragmentation" and combat the perception
of an East-West divide, its Europe minister has said.

"Buzzword number one
is to tackle fragmentation," Ivan Korcok told journalists
in Brussels on Thursday (12 May).

He said there were "many
good reasons to spread defeatism across Europe", but he
did not share the view of an East-West divide and insisted Slovakia
regarded its role "from a positive angle"."

Police in the southern German
city said they were ready to respond and were fully determined
to prevent a repeat of violent clashes that saw more than 400
demonstrators arrested outside the rightwing partys first
full conference in Stuttgart last month.

We hope everything will
go peacefully but if it doesnt, were ready,
a spokesman said."

Hugh Gerard Coney was shot
in the back by a British soldier as he and other internees tried
to escape in November 1974.

From Annaghmore, near Coalisland,
Mr Coney was detained without charge in June 1973.

An inquest held in 1975 delivered
an open verdict and his family has been campaigning to have the
case re-examined."

UK, Bulgaria PMs Talk Migration, Corruption,
Energy Security (Novinite,
link): "The migration crisis in Europe, protection of
borders, fight against corruption, and energy security have been
discussed in a meeting between Bulgarias Prime Minister
Boyko Borisov and his British counterpart David Cameron in London.

"We talked about the
processes that unfold between the [European] Commission, [European]
Parliament and Turkey, the state of our border," Borisov
said after the meeting, according to a news release from the
government press office in Sofia."

Kenny Dalglish, the manager
of Liverpool FC at the time, and his wife, Marina, are also to
be awarded the freedom of the city, along with the former bishop
of Liverpool James Jones and Prof Phil Scraton, a campaigner
for the bereaved families cause."

UK: Still
fighting the complacency at the heart of our justice system(The Justice Gap, link): "REVIEW: Miscarriages of
justice used to be big news, and investigating them commanded
big media budgets. In the 1980s, both Granada and Yorkshire television
invested heavily in the issue, making films with high production
values and months of research devoted to the cases they chose
to examine."

The missile interceptor station
in Deveselu, southern Romania, will help defend Nato members
against the threat of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles
 particularly from the Middle East, said US assistant secretary
of state Frank Rose in Bucharest on Wednesday.

Russia has taken a dim view
of the project, seeing it as a security threat on its doorstep.
Rose said: Both the US and Nato have made it clear the
system is not designed for, or capable of, undermining Russias
strategic deterrence capability."

The firms issued the unreserved
and sincere apology in the high court to bring to an end
a long-running legal action by workers who had sought to uncover
the truth behind the secret blacklist.

The firms have agreed to pay
sums understood to total about £75m to 771 blacklisted
workers, under out-of-court settlements to avoid a trial that
was due to open this week. Payouts to individuals range from
£25,000 to £200,000."

UK: Short
term migrants largely account for National Insurance data discrepancy
(Office of National Statistics, link): "ONS has published
the findings of work carried out to explain the differences between
the number of long term migrants entering the UK, measured by
the International Passenger Survey (IPS), and the numbers of
non-UK nationals registering for National Insurance Numbers (NINos).

Using a range of administrative
and survey data, we have analysed the reasons why the number
of NINos being registered has been higher than the number of
people estimated as migrating to the UK, and why in recent periods
the gap between the two figures has grown.

The key findings are:

Short term migration (between
1-12 months) from the EU for work and study has been growing
and largely accounts for the recent differences between the numbers
of long-term migrants (over 12 months) and NINo registrations
for EU citizens.

The International Passenger
Survey continues to be the best source of information for measuring
long-term international migration.

NINo registrations are not
a good measure of long term migration trends, as they do not
necessarily indicate the presence of an individual in the country,
or how long they spend here."

FRANCE: Who
becomes a terrorist, and why?(Washington Post, link):
"After major terrorist attacks hit Brussels and Paris,
Europe is still reeling. These atrocities prompted a heated dispute
between two noted French scholars of political Islam, Gilles
Kepel and Olivier Roy, over why a handful of European Muslims
become terrorists.

Their disagreement isnt
just an intellectual squabble. It strikes to the heart of how
the West understands violent Islamist extremism  and what
the appropriate policy responses might be."

Antoine Deltour and Raphaël
Halet, French former employees of auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC), are accused of leaking thousands of documents to journalist
Edouard Perrin.

The documents revealed the
huge tax breaks that Luxembourg offered international firms including
Apple, Ikea and Pepsi, saving the companies billions of euros
in taxes.

A verdict is not expected
until mid-June."

UK: Afghan
interpreters for UK armed forces lose claim that relocation scheme
was unlawful (Free Movement, link): "Former interpreters
for UK armed forces in Afghanistan have lost their claim that
the Afghn interpreter relocation scheme was unlawful on the basis
it was less generous than the Iraqi equivalent. They succeeded
on the basis that the public sector equality duty had not been
properly complied with but this made no difference overall."

Agriculture Minister Christian
Schmidt is the latest senior European politician to criticise
the American approach to the negotiations, which Barack Obama
had hoped would be completed this year.

Mr Schmidt told German newspaper
Der Spiegel: "So far at least they have hardly made any
serious concessions.""

EU: Companies
gun-shy on privacy shield (Politico, link): "Negotiators
on both sides of the Atlantic are rushing to get the so-called
privacy shield up and running next month. Businesses, on the
other hand, are in no hurry.

Companies have been in legal
limbo since October, when the European Court of Justice struck
down the international agreement protecting data transfers 
from family photos to payroll information. As regulators polish
a new pact, companies are gun-shy about signing on because privacy
advocates will almost certainly ask for another judicial ruling.

That risk is not worth it
for many. They can use clumsy alternatives in the interim. Whats
at stake is public confidence. In the age of mass surveillance
and increasing police powers, Europeans, in particular, fear
what happens to their data when it moves to the U.S.

POLITICO interviewed more
than two dozen executives, lawyers and trade groups about the
risks and potential of the privacy shield. Companies want an
international agreement for cost and convenience and an end to
the current piecemeal approach to handling data transfers."

Joe McNamee, executive director
of EDRi, told Ars that it was crucial to engage people about
the issue over the course of the next few months. Draft net neutrality
guidelines are due to be presented by the European Commission
on June 6, followed by a consultation for 20 working days on
those proposed rules.

"The next four months
are equivalent to the moment when the big successes were achieved
in the US and India," he said."

EU: Joint
action to tackle West African human trafficking networks(Europol press release, link): "The third pan-European
operation to combat the trafficking of human beings from West
Africa was carried out by law enforcement authorities in sixteen
European countries on the 28th of April and lasted until early
morning of the following day. The operation was aimed at targeting
Nigerian criminal networks operating across Europe for the purpose
of sexual exploitation.

According to provisional figures,
more than 1000 persons, mainly women from West African countries
were checked. Over 400 potential victims of trafficking (mostly
women from Nigeria) were identified. Via cross-checks at the
Europol headquarters, more than 30 persons were found to have
links to criminal structures. As a result of the day of action,
new investigations have been launched in several participating
countries with Europol's support."

David Isaac was appointed
as the head of the equality watchdog despite concerns expressed
by MPs and peers about his plans to remain an equity partner
at his law firm, which is involved in a range of government work."

UK: Inescapable
realities that face UK prisons(The Guardian, link):
"It is the fact of imprisonment that is the issue, and
the nature and culture inside that needs to be changed, otherwise
the deaths Michael Jacobson describes will continue irrespective
of the issue of overcrowding. Overcrowding exacerbates the problem
of self-inflicted deaths but it is not the cause. The shocking
statistics to which he refers belie any suggestion that the government
is successfully pursuing a reform agenda."

BULGARIA: Clashes
at Anti-Roma Rally in Radnevo, Bulgaria (Balkan Insight,
link): "Three policemen and four protesters suffered
injuries after violent clashes broke out the rally in Radnevo,
the Bulgarian interior ministry said on Thursday.

Around 2,000 people joined
the protest on Wednesday evening, following an incident in which
four men of Roma origin assaulted three Bulgarians in a street
row on Monday.

The violence erupted when
the crowd, shouting Bulgaria for the Bulgarians,
Bulgarians  heroes, Bulgaria above all
and various anti-Roma slogans, reached the Roma neighbourhood
of Kantona, which was cordoned off by interior ministry special
forces.

Some of the protesters tried
to break through the barricades and enter the Roma neighbourhood,
throwing stones and fireworks at the policemen, who responded
by dispersing the crowd with batons."

FRANCE: Disgraced
ex-police officers corruption trial opens in France
(France 24, link): "The trial of Michel Neyret, once
one of Frances most respected law enforcement officers,
opened in Paris on Monday, where he stands accused of a litany
of crimes, including corruption, drug trafficking and embezzlement.

Neyrets fall from grace
has been a spectacular one. Known for his charisma, Neyret headed
up an anti-gang unit in the southeastern city of Lyon for 20
years, a job that earned him Frances highest honour, the
Légion dhonneur, in 2004 from then interior minister
Nicolas Sarkozy.

He quickly rose up the ranks
over the next three years and was promoted to deputy chief of
police in Lyon in 2007.

Neyrets career, however,
came to a crashing halt with his arrest on September 29, 2011,
after an investigation into a major drug trafficking ring led
straight to his office."

FRANCE: Why
does 'everyone in France hate the police'? (The Local,
link): " Police unions have called on officers to take
to the streets for their own march to call for an end to "anti-cop
hatred" after clashes with protesters left 300 officers
injured.

It feels a long time since
January 11th 2015, when as millions of marched through the streets
of Paris to mourn the victims of the terror attacks, the crowds
clapped and cheered as vans of riot police snaked their way through
the throng.

The incident made headlines,
because it was so rare in France for the public to show such
an appreciation, even warmth for the forces of law and order.

Prosecutors had called for
a seven-month prison sentence for Bachmann, while his defense
pleaded for his acquittal.Tuesday's verdict is not yet legally
binding, however.

The founder of the Islamic
and xenophobic alliance, PEGIDA, was charged with inciting hatred
in October 2015. According to the indictment, Bachmann insulted
refugees on his Facebook page in September, 2014 when he described
asylum seekers as "cattle," "scum," and "trash.""

MACEDONIA: Macedonians
Mark Anniversary of Fatal Police Beating (Balkan Insight,
link): "Thousands of people gathered on Thursday evening
on Skopje's main Macedonia square, where 21-year-old Martin Neskovski
was beaten to death on June 6, 2011, when the ruling VMRO DPMNE
party was celebrating its election victory.

They also dyed the water in
the squares fountains red and threw red paint balls at
giant pictures of former prime minister and VMRO DPMNE leader
Nikola Gruevski and his former interior minister Gordana Jankuloska."

Andrei Kelin, a department
head at Russia's Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday that the
proposed NATO deployment spoken of by various officials was a
source of concern for Moscow.

Russia has scrambled jets
to intercept United States reconnaissance planes in recent weeks
and made simulated attack passes near a US warship in the Baltic
Sea."

SWEDEN: Q&A:
'Racism is on the rise in Sweden and it is scary' (Al
Jazeera, link): "Last week, activist Maria-Teresa "Tess"
Asplund, 42, took part in a counter-demonstration during a Nordic
Resistance Movement (NRM) rally where she stood alone with her
fist firmly raised confronting hundreds of neo-Nazi marchers.

The act of defiance lasted
for only a couple of seconds, but was enough for photographer
David Lagerlof to capture the action.

Asplund was adopted when she
was 17 months old by a Swedish couple, who brought her to Sweden.

She describes herself as Afro-Swedish
and is a part of the Afrophobia Focus organisation that addresses
afrophobia and hostility towards people with a sub-Saharan African
background in Sweden."

The 1,200 inmates of the west
London jail have been locked in their cells and all visits have
been cancelled as a result of the action by prison officers.

Laura Janes, the legal director
of the Howard League for Penal Reform, tweeted: Cannot
get into Wormwood Scrubs to represent young person who does not
feel safe as staff have walked out because staff dont feel
safe."

ITALY: Sino-Italian
police patrols launched in Italy (New China, link): "Police officers
from China are to collaborate with police officers from Italy
in two joint patrols in Rome and Milan in a program based on
a Sino-Italian agreement launched here on Monday.

According
to the program, police who patrol touristic areas of Rome in
central Italy and the business city Milan in northern Italy will
include two Chinese officers each, who can speak Italian and
English besides Mandarin, for two weeks starting from Monday.

"Today
it is an important day because we are strengthening collaboration
with China in a very special field," Italian Interior Minister
Angelino Alfano told a press conference in Rome in the presence
of the two countries' authorities.

Alfano said
Chinese uniformed police would work together with Italian uniformed
police in Rome and Milan to reinforce the sense of safety for
the many Chinese tourists visiting Italy."

The former
PwC Luxembourg employee is accused of stealing 45,000 pages of
secret documents from more than 400 PwC clients.

The Frenchman
is expected to say he did not plan to take the documents in advance
and when he did, he acted in the general interest.

Deltour has
always said he "acted out of conviction" for his ideas,
"not to appear in the media.""

Polands ruling party calls for
new constitution(New Europe, link): "Polands
ruling Law & Justice party is gearing up to mark the 20th
anniversary of the countrys modern constitution next year
by starting to work on replacing the charter.

As reported by Bloomberg,
the partys co-founder Jaroslaw Kaczynski dug in over the
partys conflict with the Constitutional Tribunal, saying
it wont accept a court thats putting itself above
the law.

We might not find enough
support to change the constitution during this term, but its
time to start the work, Kaczynski said in Warsaw on May
2. We can ask Poles if they prefer Poland that weve
all seen or the one thats ahead of us."

Approximately 420 trade unionists
have secured damages from major construction firms after launching
legal action four years ago.

On Friday, they announced
that they had reached out-of-court settlements with the firms.
However, another group of approximately 90 workers have yet to
settle and are scheduled to have their case heard in the high
court on 9 May."

Witnesses described the incident
at the junction of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Millbank as a hit
and run as they slammed the officers actions.

Scotland Yard said police
were trying to drive away in their BMW X5 after being targeted
by demonstrators. They drove over the bike after it had
been deliberately left in the road as an obstruction, a spokesman
said."

UK: Spycops
impresario Lambert referred to as core influence on entryism
in Quilliam report (UndercoverInfo, link): "The
Governments flagship counter-extremism think
tank, the Quilliam Foundation, extensively references the ideas
and approach associated with discredited spycops impresario Bob
Lambert, according to a document seen by UndercoverInfo. The
document, published by Quilliam, refers to Lambertism
(or entryism into the Muslim community  specifically the
non-violent extemist element) to describe this approach.
A detailed analysis of Lambertism and its application to current
counter-extremism strategies is provided in the document. What
is astounding, however, is that Quilliam Foundation document
mentions nothing about how Lambert is a core player in the spycops
scandal, currently under investigation via the Pitchford Inquiry."

AUSTRIA: Women
targeted in anti Muslim attacks in Austria (The Local,
link): " There were 156 assaults against Muslims in Austria
in 2015, with the vast majority of incidents targeting women,
according to the first ever anti-Muslim racism report presented
yesterday in Vienna.

Around 95 percent of the incidents
were aimed at women, according to the report presented by the
Documentation Office for Muslims in Austria in partnership with
the Islamic Faith Community in Austria (IGGiÖ).

The organisation documented
incidents from December 2014 up to the end of 2015 and said they
expect the number of assaults to increase in the future."

SWIFT, a cooperative owned
by 3,000 financial institutions, confirmed to Reuters that it
was aware of malware targeting its client software. Its spokeswoman
Natasha Deteran said SWIFT would release on Monday a software
update to thwart the malware, along with a special warning for
financial institutions to scrutinize their security procedures."

Antoine Deltour and a second
man, who is expected to be named in court this week, are charged
with carrying out the LuxLeaks theft, violating the Grand Duchys
strict professional secrecy laws and other offences. Their criminal
prosecution follows a complaint to Luxembourgs public prosecutor
by PwC."

The US Congress is considering
legislation which would enable the families of victims of the
September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, presented by the West
as its most valuable ally in the Middle East, over alleged links
with al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks on New York
and Washington."

MI5, MI6 and GCHQ have been
collecting and relying on huge amounts of data collected on almost
every person in the country, according to new documents obtained
by Privacy International during a legal hearing.

And spies have even been hacking
themselves to find out that personal information so that they
can use it for booking holidays and spying on their family members
to get personal details, the papers show.

The papers also prove that
the collection of bulk data has been happening for much longer
than previously known."

UK: Race and racism: exhibition:
A Nation's
Theatre - Selina Thompson: Race Cards (Arts Admin, link):
"Selina Thompson has devised 1000 questions concerning
issues of race and identity. You are invited to respond to one
of the questions which will feed into her research for this ongoing
project."

BELGIUM: Four
alleged hackers detained during police raids(Flanders
News, link): "The Brussels Federal Judicial Police has
detained four suspected member of the hackers group Down-Sec.
The suspected hackers were detained during a series of raids
in Liège. IT material was also confiscated during the
raids. Two of those detained are minors."

Currently, a ban is in place
on the announcement of exit polls for the respective election
day until 19:00. However, for years some pollsters have been
going around the ban by publishing "fake" poll results
containing hidden voter preferences. "

If approved, the proposed
new article in the Penal Code would ban the wearing of any apparel
that hides the face of a person entirely or in part.

(...)

The Patriotic Front proposes
a fine of BGN 200 (EUR 100) for first-time offenders of the ban.
Repeated violations of the ban would carry fines of BGN 1,500
each and suspension of social benefits payments for three months
if the offender is entitled to receiving them.

Persuading people to wear
burqas would carry jail terms of three years and fines of BGN
5,000. Those who persuade a minor to wear a burqa, will be punished
by up to five years in prison and a fine of BGN 10,000."

For three days of President
Xi Jinping's March visit, police dealt with numerous skirmishes
between Czech protesters and what appeared to be well-organized
groups of Chinese people supporting their leader.

Police say 23 people were
detained in total from both camps."

CZECH REPUBLIC: Security
Council rebuffs Brussels stricter gun control plans
(Radio Prague, link): "The National Security Council
has rejected plans by the European Commission to introduce tougher
gun control laws, following the terrorist attacks in Paris and
Brussels. The commission wants to make it considerably more difficult
for individuals to hold certain firearms, among them some semi-automatic
weapons. Czech officials are against the proposal, saying that
Czech gun laws are already among the toughest."

CZECH REPUBLIC: School
pupils back Muslim classmate targeted over headscarf
(Radio Prague, link): "Secondary school students in Teplice
have launched a campaign in support of a Muslim classmate under
pressure for wearing a headscarf. The schools principal
has received dozens of emails calling for her expulsion for promoting
Islam but says the teenager is going nowhere."

FINLAND: Police
under scrutiny over racial profiling claims (YLE, link):
"Police and the Finnish Border Guard have organised a
total of four immigration control operations targeting foreigners
in central Helsinki. The monitoring exercise allegedly focused
on people assumed to be of foreign extraction and involved ID
checks.

Non-Discrimination Ombudsman
Kirsi Pimiä says she has received complaints about checks
targeting foreign nationals, many of whom say they feel they
have been wrongly profiled based on their appearance.

The office says it will demand
a report from the Helsinki Police Department on its surveillance
of foreigners."

German spies imply Snowden leaked files
for Russia (The Local,
link): " NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden could have
been acting under the influence of the Russian government, the
heads of Germany's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies
said on Friday.

It's very remarkable
that he exclusively published files about the work of the NSA
with the BND [Germany's foreign intelligence service] or the
British secret service GCHQ, BND head Gerhard Schindler
told Focus magazine.

Leaking the secret service
files is an attempt to drive a wedge between western Europe and
the USA  the biggest since the Second World War,
Hans-Georg Maaßen, head of Germany's domestic intelligence
agency (Verfassungsschutz), told Focus in the double interview."

MACEDONIA: EU-Mediated
Macedonia Crisis Talks in Vienna Cancelled (Novinite,
link): "The EU-mediated meeting of Macedonian political
leaders for resolving the countrys political crisis has
been cancelled after the main opposition Social Democrats declined
to attend, the EU mediators have said.

The meeting, set for Friday
in Vienna, was called by EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes
Hahn and three members of the European Parliament in a bid to
ensure that Macedonian political leaders will continue to implement
the provisions of the EU-brokered Przino agreement reached in
June-July last year."

UK firm hired African former child soldiers
to fight in Iraq
(Middle East Eye, link): "A British defence contractor
hired mercenaries from Africa for a reported $16 a day to fight
in Iraq for the US, with one of the company's former directors
saying no checks were made on whether those hired were former
child soldiers.

James Ellery, who was a director
of Aegis Defence Services between 2005 and 2015, said contractors
recruited from countries such as Sierra Leone to reduce costs
for the US presence in Iraq. "

EU: New
passenger regulation spells end of data privacy (Times
of Malta, link): "Where did you travel on your last flight?
How did you pay for it? Did you book a hotel through your airline
and what did you eat on board? The government wants to know 
and under a new measure approved by the European Parliament this
week, your airline is obliged to tell them."

France vows crackdown after rolling protest
clashes (Reuters,
link): "France's interior minister on Friday ordered
a crackdown on violent fringe demonstrators after they smashed
shopfronts and cars on the edge of a bigger youth protest rally
held overnight against labour law reforms.

Police used teargas and pepper
gas late on Thursday to disperse mobile groups of mostly hooded
youths who targeted cars, an auto showroom and a state job-search
agency in central Paris. Violence was also reported in other
French cities.

"There will be no let-up
in the pursuit of these visionless people inspired solely by
violence, no let-up in arresting them and bringing them to justice,"
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said."

According to the poll results,
only 39 percent of Swedes think its a good idea
that Sweden is in the European Union, compared to 59 percent
in autumn 2015. However, the percentage of the Swedish people
who are definitely against the EU membership, is much lower,
as only 21 percent believe that the EU membership was a bad
idea. According to TNS the researchers asked 1142 people
aged between 18 and 79: What do you think in general about
Sweden being a member of the EU?"

Seven justices will hear arguments
on Monday, in a case brought by the Public Law Project (PLP),
insisting no minister has the power to impose such discriminatory
regulations and that the yet to be implemented residence test
is unlawful.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
has argued that only those who have an established link to the
UK should be entitled to legal aid, which is a scarce and costly
resource that must be rationed."

UK-EU: Finding
the facts: The truth behind referendum claims on EU borders and
security(ITV, link): "The UK in a Changing Europe
provides independent impartial information, from leading academics,
on the UKs relations with the EU. The ITV News series 'Finding
the Facts' is based on the initiatives work, together with
fact check organisation Full Fact, around claims made by both
the Leave and Remain campaigns in the upcoming EU referendum."

Charities and politicians
have warned the life or death decisions of whether
to deport young people are being mishandled by a callous
Home Office without a grip on the facts.

Despite spending their formative
years in Britain, children granted temporary leave to remain
in the UK as asylum seekers are often sent back to a country
they have not lived in for years when they turn 18."

Acquitting eight anti-arms
trade protesters who tried to disrupt the Defence & Security
Equipment International (DSEI) event at Stratford's ExCel Centre
last September, District Judge Angus Hamilton accepted the defendants
argument that they had tried to prevent a greater crimes, such
as genocide and torture, from occurring by blocking a road to
stop tanks and other armoured vehicles from arriving at the exhibition
centre."

While en route here, he was
abducted at Bangkok airport in Thailand by U.S. authorities 
after a reported tip-off by British intelligence  and flown
to Libya to be locked up and tortured.

The police started looking
into the case more than four years ago. Alison Saunders, Director
of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service, must
decide whether to prosecute.

If she gives the green light,
it will lead to one of the most sensational trials in British
political history.

We could see a former Foreign
Secretary, Jack Straw, in the dock, charged as a participant
or accessory to the Common Law offence of kidnapping, as well
as a statutory offence of torture under the Criminal Justice
Act 1988. This carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

We could also see a former
senior MI6 officer, Sir Mark Allen, charged with the same set
of offences. It is not inconceivable that Mr Straw and Sir Mark
could appear alongside one another as co-defendants."

EU: 26/11
Mumbai bomber enters Europe in ISIS plot: Report
(The Indian Express, link): "A Pakistani bomb-making
expert linked to the 2008 Mumbai attack is among scores of trained
terrorists who slipped into the EU posing as refugees to join
the Islamic States plot to commit atrocities in Europe,
a media report said on Sunday.

Muhammad Usman Ghani, who
is linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
terror groups, is being held in Austria on charges of participating
in a terrorist organisation, The Sunday Times said."

EU: New
Reports On Terror Attacks Underline Why Crypto Isn't A Serious
Problem: It's Hard To Use And Easy To Get Wrong (Techdirt,
link): "As Techdirt has reported, politicians (and some
journalists) haven't waited for the facts to be established before
assuming that encryption is to blame for recent terrorist attacks.
But as detailed information starts to appear, it becomes clear
once more that the bombings and shootings did not succeed because
things had "gone dark," but largely because intelligence
agencies in both Europe and the US missed numerous clues and
hints about the bigger picture. This emerges most powerfully
from a long article in The New York Times, which charts the rise
of ISIS over many years, and how the authorities were slow to
catch on"

EU-TURKMENISTAN: NGOs
call on the European Parliament to postpone approval of EU-Turkmenistan
treaty (IPHR, link): "Twenty-nine NGOs from 15
different countries call on the European Parliament to postpone
approval of the new EU-Turkmenistan Partnership and Cooperation
Agreement (PCA) until Turkmenistans government meets the
Parliaments human rights benchmarks. A letter with this
message was sent to members of the European Parliaments
Committee on Foreign Affairs ahead of its planned consideration
of the EU-Turkmenistan PCA on 11 April 2016 (postponed from 4
April 2016). The letter was also sent to members of the European
Parliaments Committee on Development, its Committee on
Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, as well as its Sub-Committee
on Human Rights.

For nearly 15 years, ratification
of the EU-Turkmenistan PCA has been delayed over grave human
rights concerns in Turkmenistan."

From the Snowden leaks in
mid-2013 to the interest surrounding a US courts ruling
that Apple de-crypt a terrorists iPhone, the words mass
surveillance are commonly used to describe many kinds of
privacy infringement. In this post we ask ourselves the question
 what exactly is mass surveillance and how might it interfere
with our human rights?"

UK: Jean
Charles de Menezes and the limits of human rights (Media
Diversified, link): "Last week, the European Court of
Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) handed down its judgment in the
case of Armani da Silva v UK. The case was brought by Patricia
da Silva, the cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian
electrician living in Tulse Hill who was killed by Metropolitan
Police Specialist Firearm Officers at Stockwell tube station
on July 22 2005. The killing came in the wake of the 7/7 bombings,
in which 52 had people lost their lives, and the attempted 21/7
attacks, in which a number of bombs were discovered on public
transport by police, having failed to detonate. Jean Charles
de Menezes lived at 17 Scotia Road; Hussain Osman, one of the
21/7 suspects, lived at number 21. Both properties used the same
doorway to access the street. In the course of a surveillance
and containment operation Jean Charles was mistaken for Hussain
Osman  it would be worth someone else having a look,
said one officer. By the time forces trained in conducting armed
stops had arrived, a Code Red had been declared,
and Jean Charles had taken a bus to Stockwell tube station. Shortly
after he entered a train and sat down, officers Charlie
2 and Charlie 12 discharged 7 bullets into
his head and ended his life. His death was one of the 58 fatal
police shootings that have taken place between 1990 and 2015.
Not one of the officers responsible has been convicted."

Professor Roland Dannreuther
is Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Westminster in
London. He talks to RightsInfo in his personal capacity about
safeguarding student safety and freedom of expression."

EU: Panama
Papers: EU's Canete implicated in leak (EUobserver, link):
"The wife of EU climate and energy commissioner Miguel
Arias Canete has been named in a huge leak of documents relating
to offshore companies called the Panama Papers, which have also
led to accusations of shady financial dealings by the leaders
of Iceland, Russia and Ukraine.

The findings, published by
several media on Monday (4 April), originated in a cache of 11.5
million electronic files belonging to Panama-based law firm Mossack
Fonseca that were initially given by an anonymous source to German
daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in early 2015. "

The legal struggle for the right to access
to a lawyer in the Netherlands (Fair Trials, link): "On 1st April 2014
the Dutch Supreme Court concluded that arrested suspects do not
have the right to access to a lawyer during police interrogation.
According to the Supreme Court it is the task of the legislator
to grant this right in accordance with the Directive 2013/48/EU
on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings. In
practice this meant that in certain cases a lawyer was effectively
banned from the hearing. Also, courts throughout the Netherlands
have systematically denied requests to exclude incriminating
statements made in absence of a lawyer as evidence.

Since the Directive was passed,
there are no signs that this right will soon be introduced in
the Netherlands and certainly not by the implementation deadline
on 26 November 2016."

The calls come after an investigation
by The Independent uncovered cases of homeless children dying
from neglect and abuse after families were moved out of their
local authority boundaries. Other evidence in the report suggested
that the transfer of homeless families to other parts of the
country could have resulted in suicides and miscarriages."

Abdurrahman A. was first in
the news a few weeks ago after a photo emerged online of him
making the fascist Grey Wolf salute at Mauthausen
concentration camp. The two fingered salute is used by members
of a Turkish nationalist party to imply that Turkish Islamists
will one day control the world.

Abdurrahman A. is a leading
member of the Linz-based organisation Avarsya, who are closely
related to the right-wing extremist group Grey Wolves from Turkey."

AUSTRIA: Iran
cancels after Austria refuses to ban protest(The Local,
link): " A trip by the Iranian President to Vienna was
cancelled this week after Austria refused to carry out Irans
request to shut down an anti-regime protest, according to media
sources.

The Austrian President had
said that Iran had cancelled the trip planned for March 30th
and 31st due to security concerns, although the Interior Ministry
has since said there were no signs of a threat. "

The man, who was carrying
20,000 in cash, was about to board a flight to Dusseldorf
when he was detained during a routine check, Ansa reported, citing
sources.

Police are working to gather
more information about the mans identity, the report said."

Poland to introduce a register of sexual
offenders (Radio
Poland, link): "The bill envisions the creation of two
separate parts of the register. One of them would comprise detailed
data, including a photograph and the current residence of the
offenders. It could be accessed solely by the courts, the police,
and special forces.

The other part would consist
of less detailed data of paedophiles and repeat offenders, and
it would be publicly available."

UK: Still
the enemy within: the strike that split Britain(OpenDemocracy,
link): "We are London-based filmmakers exploring the
reasons behind the strike, what happened that year and what we
can learn today from the miners. For our film, Still the enemy
within, we have interviewed front line pickets, women and men
who organised the soup kitchens, and members of support groups
to get some insight into the dispute 30 years on."

UK setting dangerous precedent in refusing
basic information about drone use(Drone
Wars UK, link): "In response to a Freedom of Information
(FoI) request from Drone Wars, the Ministry of Defence (MoD)
has again refused to detail the number of armed British Reaper
drones undertaking operations in Iraq and Syria, the location
of their base in the Middle East or whether they have been involved
in missions over Libya. The UK is known to have ten armed Reaper
drones in service."

BALKANS: Incomplete
Analysis Hinders Anti-Extremism in the Balkans (Balkan
Insight, link): "Balkan governments need to support efforts
to properly measure the scale of radicalisation and violent Islamic
extremism and implement comprehensive strategies to tackle the
issue, regional experts have warned.

If we don't have a complete
analysis of the phenomenon, how can we adopt an effective strategy,
conduct monitoring and coordinate a multi-agency response?
Uros Pena, deputy director of the Bosnian Directorate for the
Coordination of Police Bodies said during a conference organised
by Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, on Wednesday.

In addition to problems with
intelligence sharing between Bosnias 15 police agencies,
Pena also identified gaps in monitoring associates of suspected
and known extremists."

In an exclusive interview
with CNN's Christiane Amanpour in Washington, he criticized those
countries for allowing ISIS to spread."

EU-UKRAINE: The
expected impact of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement
(TNI, link): "On 6 April 2016, the Dutch electoracte
will go to the polls to vote in a referendum on the EUs
Association Agreement with Ukraine. But what is the referendum
about and why is the Transnational Institute campaigning for
a No vote? Here we explain why the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement
will only benefit a number of Ukraines elite at a cost
to the majority."

NETHERLANDS: Protests
at proposals to shut prisons due to lack of criminals
(Dutch News, link): "MPs have come out against proposals
to shut prisons because of falling crime rates during a debate
on Wednesday. Opposition parties and MPs from the ruling VVD
and PvdA rejected cabinet plans to close prisons and other penal
institutions during this parliamentary period. The government
said last week closing prison cells is inevitable, as crime is
expected to fall by 0.9% a year, and a third of cells are already
empty  at great cost to the country."

NETHERLANDS: Terror
suspects neighbourhood has problems, but is no Molenbeek
(Dutch News, link): "The area of Rotterdam where French
terrorist suspect Anis B was arrested on Sunday is no Molenbeek,
according to the citys mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, in reference
to the Brussels district where many of Belgiums suicide
bombers lived. We are the least segregated city in the
Netherlands, and people live together here, Aboutaleb said
at a meeting with residents from the citys Nieuw-West district
earlier this week."

Romania Jails Former Gulag Boss For 20
Years (Balkan Insight,
link): "A Romanian court on Wednesday sentenced former
jail commander Ioan Ficior to 20 years in prison for the deaths
of 103 political prisoners during the Communist regime.

He has 10 days to appeal.

This was the second trial
of a head of a Communist-era lockup in Romania since dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu was tried and executed in 1989.

Ficior, 87, was accused of
involvement also in beating detainees, depriving them of medical
treatment and forcing them to drink dirty water, which caused
dysentery."

Mohammed Moshin Ameen, 23,
posted thousands of tweets between May and October 2015, using
various different accounts.

At an earlier hearing, prosecutor
Jessica Hart told the court that the posts encourage and
glorify acts of terrorism, in particular the actions of Isil
[another name used for Isis], and invoke support for that group.

Ameen pleaded guilty at the
Old Bailey to five counts of encouraging the commission, preparation
or instigation of acts of terrorism on Twitter.

He admitted a further charge
of inviting support for Isis, as a proscribed organisation, between
4 and 6 October 2015."

UK: My
arrest  it could happen to you (Islam21C.com, link):
"At 6 a.m. on that day, as I lay in bed, I heard the
banging of feet and shouting in the corridor outside of the flat
I live in, it was all very frantic and slightly surreal. I did
not understand what was happening immediately so my neighbour
was the first to run out and see what all the fuss was about.
WE WANT LAURA STUART I heard and went to open the
door. Imagine my shock as police in uniform and stab vests started
pouring into my home."

UK-ECHR: Does
Art 5 entail a right to legal representation when facing prison
for contempt of court? (UK Human Rights Blog, link):
"The European Court of Human Rights has held that the
detention of an individual following his breach of a civil contact
order, where he had no legal representation, did not violate
his rights under Article 5, ECHR (Right to Liberty and Security
of Person). However, the decision not to provide compensation
to the individual following a failure to provide him with a lawyer
during domestic proceedings resulted in a violation of Article
6 (Right to a Fair Trial)."

The outlook is not promising.
On Wednesday there were renewed calls for a pan-European intelligence
agency that would effectively share information from different
countries. Members of the European Parliament took to the airwaves
and print to denounce, again, the lack of coordination.

Yet the hurdles are as basic
as national pride and bureaucratic turf protection, with experts
pointing out that even within nations, intelligence-gathering
agencies  France alone has some 33 of them  have
trouble cooperating."

EU-DENMARK:Minister:
Denmarks security opt-out problematic after
Brussels attacks
(EurActiv, link): "Denmarks Minister for Justice
Søren Pind worries that his country will increasingly
miss out on important information that could prevent terror attacks,
after EU ministers yesterday (24 March) agreed to step up the
information sharing between intelligence services.

Since Denmark voted to keep
its opt-out on justice and home affairs in December 2015, the
country has been negotiating a special deal for a continued Europol
cooperation, but this deal is likely to keep the Scandinavian
country out of the most essential parts of the anti-terrorism
fight."

The proposal, which is said
to be the brainchild of government office chief János
Lázár, would exempt the government and Viktor Orbán
from needing Parliaments approval for spending from the
state budget. This would mean that the government can issue a
decree on a certain spending item and the resources will be automatically
accounted for in the state budget. The last time this method
was in use was before the change of systems in 1990."

ITALY-ECHR: European
Court issues emergency measure to stop Italy from evicting Roma
family (European Roma Rights Centre, link): "A
disabled Romani woman and her daughter stopped their eviction
by getting the European Court of Human Rights to issue an emergency
measure moments before closing for the holiday weekend. The women,
who have lived with other family members for years in a temporary
segregated, Roma-only shelter run by the City of Rome, were threatened
with eviction last week. Now in a decision made within 24 hours,
the European Court of Human Rights told the Italian Government
not to evict the family."

An extraordinary meeting of
justice and security ministers in Brussels on Thursday came two
days after suicide bombers killed over 30 people in the Belgian
capital.

The PNR would give security
services of each member state access to an extensive database
of information on air passengers."

UK: Art
and the Law: Obscene Publications (Index on Censorship,
link): "Freedom of expression is essential to the arts.
But the laws and practices that protect and nurture free expression
are often poorly understood both by practitioners and by those
enforcing the law. The law itself is often contradictory, and
even the rights that underpin the laws are fraught with qualifications
that can potentially undermine artistic free expression.

As indicated in these packs,
and illustrated by the online case studies  available at
indexoncensorship. org/artandoffence  there is scope to
develop greater understanding of the ways in which artists and
arts organisations can navigate the complexity of the law, and
when and how to work with the police. We aim to put into context
the constraints implicit in the European Convention on Human
Rights and so address unnecessary censorship and self-censorship."

UK: Criminal
justice faces perfect storm of cuts and overstretch (Centre
for Crime and Justice Studies, link): "Criminal justice
agencies across the UK face a perfect storm of growing demand
and shrinking budgets by the time of the next General Election,
according to new analysis by the Centre for Crime and Justice
Studies.

A rising prison population
 set to top 100,000 by 2020  and inadequate legal
aid funding are just two of the threats facing the delivery of
justice across the UK, the Centre reports.

Governments in London, Edinburgh
and Belfast should pursue a managed downsizing of the key criminal
justice agencies to reflect shrinking budgets, the Centre concludes,
rather than continuing to squeeze ever greater delivery out of
ever diminishing resources."

The campaign Football Fans
Not Criminals (FFNC), launched in conjunction with civil liberties
group the Manifesto Club, wants to scrap a series of crimes that
only relate to football supporters. These include offences of
indecent chanting, encroaching on the pitch and possession of
alcohol when entering a ground.

The group, which has the backing
of individuals from Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters
Federation, also wants to end civil banning orders, bubble
matches where ticket purchases and travel arrangements
are restricted, intrusive body searches, the filming of fans
by police, and end the ban on drinking alcohol in stadium spectator
areas."

Helen Steel is a lifelong
activist and no stranger to the Royal Courts of Justice. She
has just finished a four-year legal case against the police after
she discovered her former partner John Barker was in fact undercover
police officer John Dines. It was a fight characterised by Metropolitan
police attempts to use any tactic to obstruct accountability
and justice. At the end the Met conceded these legal proceedings
have been painful, distressing and intrusive and added to the
damage and distress.

The same Met lawyers are now
wheeling out the same tactics for the Pitchford inquiry, claiming
they cant talk about officers as there is a long-standing
policy of Neither Confirm Nor Deny. Helen Steel told
last weeks hearing there is no such thing. Clear, comprehensive
and authoritative, her speech ended with a round of applause
from the court."

USA:Mass
surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study (The Washington Post, link): "A
new study shows that knowledge of government surveillance causes
people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. The research
offers a sobering look at the oft-touted "democratizing"
effect of social media and Internet access that bolsters minority
opinion.

The study, published in Journalism
and Mass Communication Quarterly, studied the effects of subtle
reminders of mass surveillance on its subjects. The majority
of participants reacted by suppressing opinions that they perceived
to be in the minority. This research illustrates the silencing
effect of participants dissenting opinions in the wake
of widespread knowledge of government surveillance, as revealed
by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013."

The visa exemption program
allows citizens of 38 countries access to the United States for
tourism or business without a visa.

The US Department of Homeland
Security after an increase in the number of forged and stolen
passports, which it says could facilitate the movement of terrorists.
The number of illicit documents has doubled in the past six years.

France, Belgium, Germany,
Italy and Greece were initially given a February 1 deadline to
fix crucial loopholes or lose access to the U.S.
visa waiver program. The deadline was then extended to the end
of March."

Dutch newspaper AD had announced
on Thursday night it would publish excerpts of documents from
Wilders' legal team that contained their legal strategy.

Apparently someone has
gained access to these documents, said Wilders' lawyer
Geert-Jan Knoops. He called the leak an attack on this
trial and said it was a breach of the right to a
fair trial. He said his legal team was now unsure if their
lawyer-client communication can be conducted confidentially."

UK: Gove
pledges action on youth custody safety (Children &
Young People Now, link): "Appearing before the justice
select committee, Gove said he has been working with Charlie
Taylor, who is currently conducting a review of the youth justice
system, and Michael Spurr, the chief executive of the National
Offender Management Service, to address issues in the youth secure
estate.

"[We are] making sure
we have the additional investment, specifically in the youth
estate in order to deal with some of these problems," Gove
said."

Over the last twelve months
whispers of life inside the controversial immigration centre
have spilled into newspaper stories and human rights reports
- but who are the women living at Yarl's Wood?

Over the next few weeks, I
will be telling their stories.

Mabel Gawanas first arrived
in Yarl's Wood in May 2014. Few immigration detention cases are
straightforward but Mabel's file is a mess."

UK: National
outcry as NUS Scotland officer detained, scheduled for deportation(The Student Newspaper, link): "A newly-elected National
Union of Students (NUS) Scotland officer has been detained, separated
from his children, and scheduled for deportation over an apparent
procedural issue with his asylum status, the NUS has said, sparking
outcry across the country and capturing the attention of Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Lord Elias Mensah Apetsi,
a Masters student at Strathclyde University recently elected
to NUS Asylum and Refugee Officer, was detained by the Home Office
twelve days ago after a technical failure with a routine monthly
asylum checkin, according to the NUS.

The detention occurred after
a Leave to Remain application was submitted past the deadline,
the NUS said, in what the organisation called a human error,
not of Lords making."

Known as the Joint Intelligence
Analysis Centre, the facility will be located at the RAF Croughton,
a US Air Force base near Milton Keynes, which already processes
about a third of US military communications in Europe.

The proposed ultra-secure
data centre would be the US headquarters for European and African
military communications, employing up to 1,250 staff analysing
intelligence from more than 50 countries. It is due to be completed
next year."

Rene Jahn says the anti-immigration
neo-Nazis whip up Islamophobia by spreading xenophobic
falsehoods about the million refugees that have flooded into
the country.

Whistleblower Jahn says lies
like German kindergartens being banned from serving pork, Sharia
Law being imposed, migrant sex assaults and stories of refugees
breaking into a petting zoo and eating a goat all come from Pegida."

The purpose of the meeting,
held at Romes Centocelle military airport, was to prepare
for the establishment of a joint force to develop stability in
Libya, Italian television said without giving further details.
Gentiloni stressed that the development of plans does not mean
intervention."

NETHERLANDS: Reflections
on Dutch Border Practices (Border Criminologies, link):
"Post by Vanessa Barker, Docent and Associate Professor
of Sociology at Stockholm University. This post is the final
installment of Border Criminologies themed series on Decision-making
in the Dutch Borderlands organised by Maartje van der Woude."

The 37-year-old had allegedly
been investigating claims of corruption within the Metropolitan
Police when his body was found in the car park of a south London
pub with an axe lodged in his head on March 10, 1987.

Almost three decades on the
crime remains unsolved despite a series of police inquiries and
a tireless campaign by the family of the father-of-two to reach
the truth. It has been claimed the same alleged corruption Mr
Morgan was investigating when he died has prevented his killer
from being brought to justice. "

My background is in prisons.
That's the same for most of the staff. Prisons are horrible.
It's a hundred miles an hour from the minute you report for duty
until your shift ends. But in the prison service, we're at least
trained to a very high standard in all kinds of things, from
control and restraint to restorative justice.

Removal centres are completely
different. The main reason? The people we look after aren't criminals."

EU:DiEM25
and the search for a European demos(Open Democracy,
link): "A successful Democracy in Europe Movement 2025
(DiEM25) needs to redefine European citizenship by leading and
shaping debates on the place of the individual in todays
European society."

IRELAND: Journalists
at risk after gardai seek photos(The Times,
link): "Press photographers lives are being endangered
by an increasing number of attempts by gardai to use images taken
at protests for evidence, the National Union of Journalists has
claimed.

Concern about the trend has
led the NUJ to call for gardai to rely on their own resources
to obtain photographic evidence.

Seamus Dooley, the unions
Irish secretary, said that he was alarmed by the growing tendency
of gardai to regard photographers and journalists as collecting
agents, given that there was established case law set down
by the European and Irish courts on the issue."

NETHERLANDS: Rising
Islamophobia reported in the Netherlands(New Europe,
link): "A third of the mosques in the Netherlands have
experienced at least one incident of vandalism, threatening letters,
attempted arson, the placement of a pigs head, or other
aggressive actions in the past 10 years, according to research
by Ineke van der Valk, an author and researcher at the University
of Amsterdam."

The study conducted by researchers
at the Centre of Excellence for Public Health at Queen's, indicates
that living in an area in close proximity to a segregation barrier,
or peace line, increases a persons likelihood of being
on antidepressant medication by 19 per cent and on anxiolytic
medication, which inhibits anxiety, by 39 percent."

If the amendment survives
the House of Commons (where the Immigration Bill will go to next),
it would mean improved judicial oversight for some people in
detention, or who may be detained in the future."

A 51-year-old man from Pontypool
and two women - a 25-year-old from Cardiff and a 54-year-old
from Newport were arrested for public order offences.

A 32-year-old woman from Swansea
was arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass and criminal
damage, a 26-year-old man from Carmarthenshire was arrested on
suspicion of aggravated trespass and a 41-year-old man from Bristol
was been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer,
South Wales Police said."

In a letter to the universitys
lawyers seen by The Electronic Intifada, lawyers acting for Southampton
academics Suleiman Sharkh and Oren Ben-Dor told the university
of their intent to challenge the latest ban in court."

The large-scale event off
the west coast of Scotland will form part of the regular UK-led
Nato Joint Warriors exercise.

The navy, on its website,
is billing the robotic part as Unmanned Warrior 2016,
and says: Recognising a commitment to innovation, the Royal
Navy will host a large-scale demonstration in a tactically representative
environment of maritime autonomous systems in the autumn of 2016."

EU: A
data dozen to prepare for reform (ICO, link): "Manchester
becomes the capital of UK data protection this week, with 800
data protection practitioners heading to our conference in the
city. And for the delegates heading to the north-west, top of
the agenda will be considering the impending implementation of
the data protection reforms agreed last December. The reforms
encompass the General Data Protection Regulation, which will
have direct effect, and a new Directive on data protection related
to law enforcement.

The last pieces of work to
finalise the texts continue apace, focused on translation and
final legal checks. Once that happens, well see final political
agreement, hopefully around July and then a two year transition
period to accustom ourselves to the new way of doing things."

EU: Fair
Trials to launch new report on defence rights in Europe
(Fair Trials, link): "Wonder why defence rights are still
an issue for human rights defenders in 2016s Europe? Discover
what is at stake in the latest report of the Legal Experts Advisory
Panel (LEAP), Defence Rights in Europe: The Road Ahead.

The publication will be launched
at a roundtable hosted by Fair Trials, together with MEP Nathalie
Griesbeck at the European Parliament on 16th March. The event
will gather MEPs, lawyers, academics and representatives of the
European civil society to discuss challenges ahead for the defence
of procedural rights across the Union, and build on the progress
weve made so far."

MEDITERRANEAN: The
Meaning of Russias Naval Deployments in the Mediterranean
(Eurasia Daily Monitor, link): "Russian ships equipped
with the advanced sea-launched Kalibr cruise missile will now
be perpetually present in the Mediterranean Sea as part of Moscows
naval operations connected to the mission in Syria. This is according
to Admiral Aleksandr Vitko, the commander of the Russian Black
Sea Fleet (BSF) (RIA Novosti, February 19)."

POLAND: Life
not too rosy in Polish jails (Radio Poland, link): "The
countrys Prison Service says that 71,633 people are being
held in Polish jails, which have a total capacity of 83,491.

"Although the situation
has improved considerably in recent years when it comes to the
population of penitentiary units, the minimum area of a residential
cell in Polish jails is still barely three square metres per
prisoner," said Dr. Ewa Dawidziuk of the office of the Commissioner
for Human Rights.

UK: Bar
warns against online lawyerless court plan(Law
Society Gazette, link): "Proposals to introduce an online
court mark a fundamental departure from the adversarial
system of justice, which could have major implications
for the judiciary and training at the bar, the Bar Council has
warned.

Responding to an interim report
from Lord Justice Briggs on the structure of civil courts, the
bar said the proposals could lead to the departure of talented
advocates to other areas of practice or from the bar altogether."

They also voted to allow overseas
domestic workers to change employers without risking immediate
deportation. This defeat for the government will give domestic
workers the right to change their employer once in the UK and
to remain in the country for up to two years after doing so."

This newspaper found several
senior MoJ officials recently left Whitehall to take up jobs
with a consultancy.

In the months before they
departed, the consultancys UK branch had helped secure
contracts worth more than £600 million for a controversial
US firm to run probation services across swathes of the South
East, and a Northamptonshire young offenders unit."

UK: The
real impact of the legal aid cuts (New Statesman, link):
"One morning in January 2014, Gloria Jackson was returning
from the supermarket with her groceries when she saw five policemen
standing near the door of her home in London. When she tried
to pass and go inside, the officers told her that she was under
arrest. Jackson, a 57-year-old NHS psychiatric nurse who worked
with dementia patients, was searched in the street as her neighbours
looked on, locked in the back of a police van and driven away."

USA: How
new FBI powers to look through NSA intercepts will exacerbate
mass incarceration (ACLU of Massachusetts, link): "The
wall separating foreign intelligence operations from
domestic criminal investigations has finally, fully collapsed.
The FBI now plans to act on a rule change initiated by the Bush
administration and finally massaged into actionable policy by
Obama: Soon, domestic law enforcement agencies like the FBI will
be able to search through communications collected under the
mysterious authority of executive order 12333. Now, FBI agents
can query the NSAs database of Americans international
communications, collected without warrants pursuant to Section
702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act. That law put congress
stamp of approval on the Bush administrations warrantless
wiretapping program, which was widely denounced as totalitarian
when the New York Times James Risen exposed it to the world
in 2005."

USA: The
Next Front in the New Crypto Wars: WhatsApp(Electronic
Frontier Foundation, link): "In Saturdays edition
of the New York Times, Matt Apuzzo reports that the Department
of Justice is locked in a prolonged standoff with
WhatsApp. The government is frustrated by its lack of real-time
access to messages protected by the companys end-to-end
encryption. The story may represent a disturbing preview of the
next front in the FBIs war against encryption."

Some of the Paris attackers
and alleged accomplices came from the troubled Brussels' neighbourhood
of Molenbeek, and Belgium has rejected French criticism of alleged
failings by its intelligence services before the attacks in which
130 people died.

RTBF cited as one "glaring
example" of intelligence failings the fact that "even
before the Paris attacks, a nom de guerre used by one of the
terrorists featured in several (police) databases in Belgium,
but not in the central database"."

EU:New
EU directive on the rights of minors on trial(New Europe,
link): "Minors who are suspected or accused of a crime
will have the right to a fair trial, assistance of a lawyer and
be accompanied by parent or guardian through the proceedings.
This is based on new rules approved by the European Parliament
on March 9.

According to a European Parliament
press release, the text presents a catalogue of rights and guarantees
as a common European model of fair trials for children under
the age of 18. Caterina Chinnici (S&D, IT), who steered the
legislation through parliament, said the goal is to strike a
balance between the need to ascertain responsibility for crime
and the need to take due account of minors vulnerability
and specific needs."

The Belfast Telegraph understands
the Parades Commission has approved an application for an Apprentice
Boys of Derry march on Easter Monday.

However, it will not be permitted
to go through republican areas close to Shankill Parish Church.

Up to 3,600 participants and
61 bands are expected to pass through the town.

The timing of the parade is
particularly sensitive as it falls around the weekend when republicans
are set to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising."

Polish Government Preparing to Contest
Rights Report (ABC
News, link): " Poland will challenge the findings of
an international human rights commission which is expected to
deliver a scathing assessment of democratic backsliding in the
European Union's largest ex-communist member state, the foreign
minister said Thursday.

Witold Waszczykowski said
the government plans to dispute the findings of the Venice Commission,
an arm of the Council of Europe human rights group. The commission
is scheduled to deliver its report on Friday in Venice."

SWEDEN: Isolated
before trial: Pre-trial detention in Sweden (Fair Trials
International, link): "This article, jointly written
by Teresa Barrio Traspaderne, our Campaigns and Communications
Intern, and Daniel Roos, a Swedish criminal lawyer and a member
of Fair Trials Legal Experts Advisory Panel (LEAP), explores
the practice of pre-trial detention in Sweden, and why it has
been subject to harsh criticism from international human rights
bodies."

TURKEY: Erdogan,
prince of Europe, took my newspaper Zaman (EUobserver,
link): "When European Council president Donald Tusk was
in Ankara and tweeting how his meetings with president Erdogan
and prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu were fruitful, the news that
an Istanbul court had taken the decision to confiscate Zaman
was already circulating the newsrooms. The violent takeover happened
when commissioner Johannes Hahn, responsible for accession talks
with Turkey, was still in the country.

It is as if Erdogan wanted
to teach a lesson to European leaders. The seizure comes just
before the second Turkey-EU summit in four months like a slap
in the face of European values."

UK: Stop
Government plans to snoop on your internet history(38
Degrees, link): "No other Government in the world has
these kinds of intrusive powers. And they dont need them.
We need to ask why the British police need to access our web
history when police forces around the world dont do this.

Some people say if you
have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. But we
should all be worried about our sensitive personal information
being collected and analysed. Companies like Talk Talk have been
hacked before, and the sensitive data that all our ISPs will
now be expected to keep about us will be very valuable to cyber-criminals.

The Government have tried
to push through new snooping powers before and a public backlash
stopped them in their tracks. Now we need to come together again
and demand Theresa May removes Internet Connection Records from
the Bill."

The ruling could now see hundreds
of failed asylum seekers, including those who arrived in Britain
as unaccompanied children years ago, returned on special charter
flights from London."

UK: UNDERCOVER POLICING:Evidence
spycop John Dines worked at heart of Australias intelligence-gathering
community
(UndercoverInfo, link): "A document (see below) shows
that for several years UK spycop John Dines worked at the heart
of Australias intelligence-gathering community (including
undercover ops). The man who infiltrated protest groups in the
UK and who abused a woman over two years by concealing his true
identity has also received an award by the Charles Sturt University
in Australia for Professional Excellence. Dines hoped
to escape the London-based inquiry into undercover policing,
but last Sunday was spectacularly outed by Helen Steel, an activist
with London Greenpeace and the woman whose life he abused, when
she confronted him at Sydney airport as he was waiting to greet
a contingent of police officers from India, who he is training
as part of the course he runs at the University. The universitys
executive dean of the faculty of arts, Professor Tracey Green,
stated that Dines works only in an administrative capacity,
but another document, referred to below, shows Dines playing
a far more active role that merely administrative
"

"The U.S. is notorious
for prison abuse at Guantanamo prison, its gun violence is rampant,
racism is its deep-rooted malaise," Chinese diplomat Fu
Cong told the Council, using unusually blunt language.

"The United States conducts
large-scale extra-territorial eavesdropping, uses drones to attack
other countries' innocent civilians, its troops on foreign soil
commit rape and murder of local people. It conducts kidnapping
overseas and uses black prisons.""

USA: Veil
of secrecy lifted on Pentagon office planning Avatar
fighters and drone swarms (Washington Post, link): "High
over Alaska last summer, the Pentagon experimented with new,
secret prototypes: Micro-drones that can be launched from the
flare dispensers of moving F-16s and F/A-18 fighter jets. Canisters
containing the tiny aircraft descended from the jets on parachutes
before breaking open, allowing wings on each drone to swing out
and catch the wind. Inch-wide propellers on the back provided
propulsion as they found one another and created a swarm.

The experiment was run by
the secretive Strategic Capabilities Office, a Pentagon organization
launched in summer 2012 to figure out how to best counter growing
strategic threats from China and Russia. The specifics of what
the mini-drones can do are classified, but they could be used
to confuse enemy forces and carry out surveillance missions using
equipment that costs much less than full-sized unmanned aircraft.
Video reviewed by The Washington Post shows the tiny aircraft,
which weigh about a pound each, moving in packs and gaining situational
awareness after sitting inert in the flare canisters."

The three-day, Home Office-organised
Security and Policing 2016 fair, which started on Monday near
a military base in Farnborough, features more than 350 companies
including weapons manufacturers BAE, Airbus and Heckler &
Koch selling to EU and foreign governments."

UK:IPCC
refers Leon Briggs investigation to the CPS(IPCC, link):
"The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)
has concluded its investigation into the circumstances surrounding
the death of Leon Briggs, and has referred the case to the Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS) for a decision on whether criminal
charges should be brought against any individual."

Bulgarian premier: Greece is not a functioning
state (EurActiv,
link): "Exasperated by the continued blockade of his
country by Greek farmers, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov
said at the EU summit yesterday (18 February) that Greece was
not a functioning state.

Greek farmers protesting the
pension report of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras have
been blocking Bulgarias border with Greece for several
weeks now."

EU:5,000
jihadists could be at large in Europe(New Europe, link):
"Up to 5,000 EU citizens, trained in Syria and Iraq by
the Islamic State (IS), have returned in Europe, Europol chief
Rob Wainwright said in an interview with Germanys Neue
Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper.

On 20 February, Wainwright
told the German daily that Europe is currently facing the
highest terror threat in more than 10 years. He said that
the EU Member States can expect by the so-called Islamic State
(IS) or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere
in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among
the civilian population. Wainwright added that the estimated
thousands of returned jihadists presents EU member states
with completely new challenges."

EU: Fundamental
Rights Forum: connect.reflect.act(EU Fundamental Rights
Agency, link): "People from all walks of life will come
together in FRAs inclusive, innovative and forward-looking
Fundamental Rights Forum in Vienna from 20-23 June 2016 under
the banner of Rights, Respect, Reality: the Europe of Values
in Todays World. "

EU: Hearing
on respect for fundamental rights and rule of law (European
Parliament, link): "Fundamental rights, democracy and
the rule of law in EU will be at the core of a hearing hosted
by civil liberties and constitutional affairs' committees on
Monday afternoon, at 16:30. Invited guests are senior lawyers
from the EU Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights
and from Belgium, Hungary and Poland."

The Scottish First Minister
said that the EU is not a perfect institution but
that it it is better for us in all circumstances to stay
in.

Repeating her calls for Scottish
independence, she said that she believes her country would be
best served as an independent member state of the
bloc."

UK: The
Tory Trade Union Bill breaches international law (Morning
Star, link): "The International Labour Organisation has
taken the government to task over its vicious plans to curb the
trade union movement  but CAROLYN JONES doubts whether
courtroom decisions will be enough to stop the Tories in their
tracks"

EU: Bosnia
applies for EU membership, hoping to make up ground(AP,
link): "Bosnia handed in its application for EU membership
Monday, hoping to catch up with its neighbors on the EU path
but confronting the reality that many in the country have grown
tired of waiting for jobs and prosperity and are already voting
with their feet"

FRANCE: Access
to Connection Data: French Council of State Flees EU Debate
(La Qudrature du Net, link): "The French Council of State
has released an eagerly awaited decision (fr) on the validity
of administrative access to connection data. La Quadrature du
Net, French Data Network and the FDN Federation have been calling
into question the Military Programmation Law (LPM) and its application
decree that enables the administration to access connection data
without requiring any judicial control. By refusing to repeal
the decree and to transmit the question to the European Court
of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling, the Council of State
avoids any judicial debate and isolates French vis-à-vis
EU case law."

On Sunday, counter-terrorism
officials were investigating three men  all Iraqi Kurds
with British passports  seized in two separate operations
near the Greek-Turkish frontier. They were found in possession
of 22 firearms and more than 200,000 rounds of ammunition."

Polish-born Jan Tomasz Gross,
a Princeton University history professor, was awarded the Order
of Merit of the Republic of Poland in 1996 for his work documenting
the plight of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland."

UK child prisons: thousands of injuries
not disclosed by government(The Guardian,
link): "Thousands more children have been injured in
custody through the use of controversial restraint techniques
than the government had previously disclosed, new statistics
show. This has prompted accusations that the true scale of harm
in privately run jails has been suppressed. Figures reveal that
the number of injuries to children caused by the use of restraint
is more than three times higher than the total previously stated
by the Youth Justice Board (YJB)."

UK: Early
guilty pleas: Justice for whom? (UK Human Rights Blog,
link): "New guidelines incentivising people accused of
criminal offences in England and Wales to plead guilty as early
as possible were proposed last week. While existing rules allow
for a maximum one-third reduction in the sentence to those who
plead guilty at the first reasonable opportunity,
this benefit is now only available to those who plead guilty
at their very first court hearing, with the available reduction
falling on a steeper sliding scale thereafter."

The tactic, also known as
computer network exploitation, allows authorities to interfere
with electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets and PCs
in order to obtain data.

Operations can range from
using a target's login credentials to gain access to information
held on a computer to more sophisticated tactics such as remotely
installing a piece of software in order to obtain the desired
intelligence and covertly downloading the contents of a mobile
phone."

Andargachew Andy
Tsege, from London, has been detained by Ethiopian forces since
23rd June 2014, when he was seized at an airport in Yemen and
forcibly taken to Ethiopia. He is held under a sentence of death
handed down in absentia in 2009, in relation to his activities
with an Ethiopian opposition group. The Ethiopian authorities
have refused to allow Mr Tsege to see or talk to his British
family, and have denied his requests to see a lawyer."

UK: Police
commissioners have no part to play in the running of schools(politics.co.uk, link): " Many people don't know
it  and possibly even fewer care  but in three months,
the second cohort of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) will
have been elected. The first elections in November 2012 attracted
a turnout of just 15%  the lowest ever at a peacetime non-local
government election in the UK.

Which is perhaps why the home
secretarys recent speech about the future of PCCs scarcely
made a ripple  despite unveiling a catalogue of new powers
so absurd they wouldn't look out of place in The Thick of It."

UK: Tory
socks in a twist over charities(Morning Star, link):
"As a government minister calls charities that speak
out sock puppets, SOLOMON HUGHES looks at the interdependency
of the two and the wider political implications for a sector
with a total income of £37.9 billion"

USA: Drones
do lower threshold for use of lethal force academic
study finds(Drone Wars UK, link): "In essence
it is argued that averse public reaction to the death of military
forces deployed overseas is a real restraint on political leaders
weighing up the option of whether to launch military intervention.
Take away that potential political cost by using unmanned systems
such as drones and it becomes much easier for political leaders
to opt for clean and quick use of military force
rather than the slow and often difficult political and diplomatic
options. While we and others have been making this argument for
some time, an important new study by two US academics published
in a US military journal sheds new light on the subject.

In The Ethics of Drone
Strikes: Does Reducing the Cost of Conflict Encourage War?
James Walsh and Marcus Schulzke report on their empirical study
into how public attitudes towards the use of armed force change
when unmanned drones are used in comparison to the deployment
of other types of force."

Why ISIS Propaganda Works(The
Atlantic, link): "In January, the State Department restructured
its own counterpropaganda apparatus, creating a Global
Engagement Center to more effectively coordinate,
integrate and synchronize messaging to foreign audiences that
undermines the disinformation espoused by violent extremist groups,
including ISIL and al-Qaeda. However, even in this new
guisewhich, while it marks an important push in the right
direction, risks being too centralized within national governments
at the same time that it lacks the requisite level of coordination
among different countriesthe coalitions information
operations are facing an almost insurmountable challenge. Such
a state of affairs is untenable. To ameliorate it, a new communications
architecture is required, based on three pillars: global strategic
direction, local delivery, and a broader, more accurate understanding
of how and why the Islamic State appeals."

EU: Getting
the details right: how Parliament scrutinises how legislation
is implemented (press release, pdf): "As co-legislator,
the European Parliament is fully involved in setting up general
rules and making policy choices in areas as diverse as food safety,
data protection and the fight against terrorism. How these rules
are then put into practice also matters, as technical requirements
can make a big difference to Europeans' everyday lives. That
is why MEPs are focussing more and more on the delegated and
implementing acts that set out how adopted legislation should
be carried out."

GUANTANAMO: Ex-Guantánamo
Detainee Is Freed From Moroccan Prison (The New York
Times, link): "A Moroccan judge on Thursday ordered the
release of a former detainee at the Guantánamo Bay prison
who had remained in custody for nearly five months despite diplomatic
assurances that he would probably be freed shortly after his
transfer to Morocco.

Though the former detainee,
Younis Shokuri, walked free for the first time in 15 years, he
still faces the possibility of criminal charges related to allegations
that he was involved with a Moroccan Islamist group before his
capture in 2001; he has denied the allegations."

NORTHERN IRELAND: Belfast, 9
June: How Public
Order Policing Works in Northern Ireland - Launch of Guide(CAJ, link): "The Committee on the Administration
of Justice is publishing a guide to how public order policing
should work in Northern Ireland. In common with all aspects of
policing, the PSNI adopts a human rights approach in relation
to planning, operations and accountability for public order situations.
This guide goes through the relevant standards to create a coherent
narrative which is designed to identify decision points and the
mechanisms through which the police are accountable for their
decisions and actions."

Spain loses major 20th-century historical
archive (El País,
link): "A treasure trove of over 2,700 documents shedding
light on the wars of the 20th century is to end up at Harvard
Universitys Houghton Library after the Madrid foundation
that owns it was unable to reach an agreement to keep it in Spain."

Raúl García,
34, and Alfonso Lázaro, 29, refused to answer questions
from reporters as they arrived at the court accompanied by a
group of friends."

The article notes that "they
used their glove puppets to hold a placard that read Gora-Alka-ETA,
or Long live Al Qaeda-ETA"." This was part of
the performance: a puppet police officer planted the placard
on the dead body of another puppet, in order to frame him.

Just Solutions (JSi) was established
in 2012 by Mr Graylings predecessor, Ken Clarke, and remained
in operation until it was recently wound up by current Justice
Secretary, Michael Gove.

Mr Grayling declined to comment.
"

UK: Freezing
undocumented migrants out of NHS care could pose health risks
say medics (Migrants' Rights Network, link): "Writing
for the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a group of medics and
researchers warn that government plans to extend charging for
migrants into some NHS primary care services and emergency departments
could make the NHS the most restrictive healthcare system in
Europe for undocumented migrants."

The National Pupil Database
contains a range of sensitive information dating from the year
2000, including name, postcode, ethnicity, records on absence,
reasons for exclusion, types of disability, and whether the pupil
is a recipient of free school meals."

UK: UNDERCOVER POLICING: How
many more of us were tricked by police officers?
(Hackney Gazette, link): "The activist deceived by undercover
police spy Mark Jenner, who embarked on a five-year relationship
with her while married with children, has warned hundreds of
women may have been affected by the Mets infiltration of
left-wing political groups."

UK-USA:US
drone operations centre to open in the UK?(Drone Wars
UK, link): "In December 2015 the US announced plans to
vastly expand its drone programme including increasing the number
of drones to be purchased, doubling the number of drone operators
and opening new drone bases.

According to a report in the
LA Times, as part of these plans Pentagon officials are considering
putting a drone operations centre at a USAF base in the UK 
at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk."

USA:Donald
Trump and Ted Cruz fail to understand that torture doesnt
work(The Guardian, link): "One of lifes
enduring mysteries is how intent politicians seem to be on ignoring
the lessons of history. One recent example involves torture.
There was once a consensus that torture was immoral; even today,
any sensible person knows torture is of little use if you want
accurate information. Yet the current crop of Republican presidential
candidates have been trying to outbid one another with promises
of barbarism: Senator Ted Cruz confirmed that he favours simulated
drowning, which he classifies as an enhanced interrogation
technique (EIT) that falls short of torture. (The Spanish
Inquisition was rather more honest, and called it tortura del
agua.) The Donald immediately trumped his rival:
he would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

BALKANS: Kosovo,
Bosnian Activists Demand End to Visas (Balkan Insight,
link): "Activists from Bosnia and Kosovo meeting in Pristina
on Friday issued a joint call to their governments to end the
visa restrictions impeding relations between the two countries.

The conference in Pristina,
part of the Open Talks Initiative, brought together
journalists, academics, activists and artists to discuss economic,
cultural and social ties  and the lack there of 
between Bosnia and Kosovo.

Many things are absurd
in the Balkans but this is truly the stupidest! Azem Vllasi,
a lawyer and former President of Kosovo before the collapse of
Yugoslavia, said."

HUNGARY: UN
special rights rapporteur to visit Hungary (Politics.hu,
link): "Michel Forst, United Nations special rapporteur,
will visit Hungary next week to examine the situation regarding
the protection of human rights in the country, the Hungarian
office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told the daily
Népszava. Forst will gather information over nine days
on the difficulties faced by civil organisations and examine
how the space for democracy can be expanded, the UN office told
the paper. The rapporteur will pay particular attention to the
protection of human rights in light of recent constitutional
changes and mounting social fears relating to the refugee crisis."

NETHERLANDS: Dutch
build new cells in prison terrorist units (Dutch News,
link): "The Netherlands two high security prisons
in Vught and Rotterdam are overflowing with terrorist and jihadi
suspects and the number of cells is being expanded in secret,
the AD said on Monday."

In 2005 more than 200 people
were sent to jail for trafficking and human smuggling, but by
2014 this had gone down to 60.

Courts are also imposing shorter
sentences. Last year four people were sent to jail for longer
than a year, compared with seven in 2014, the AD said. In total
90 cases involving human trafficking were taken to court in the
Netherlands last year. This too is a drop on previous years."

UK: Data
on EU migration would be too expensive to "collate",
government says (National Institute of Economic and Social
Research, link): "The governments partial and selective
release of some data on EU migrants and in-work benefits has
been widely reported. What has been released is enough to make
it still more obvious that the Prime Ministers claim that
40 percent of recent migrants were dependent on benefits
was, at best highly misleading."

UK: Kafka
2016 (Craig Murray, link): "To my astonishment,
the FCO Official Spokesman has just confirmed to me that the
FCO stands by Phillip Hammonds statement that the members
of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention are lay persons,
and not lawyers. Even though every single one of them is an extremely
distinguished lawyer.

I confess I am utterly astonished.
I know there is nothing more dull than an old buffer like me
droning on about falling standards in public life. But when I
was in the FCO, the vast majority of colleagues would have refused
to advance what is a total and outright lie, about which it cannot
be argued there is an area of interpretation, doubt or nuance."

The 133 individuals are also
calling for a list of political groups that were infiltrated
by the police spies to be made public.

They have come together to
send a collective letter to Lord Justice Pitchford, the judge
who is heading the inquiry examining the infiltration of political
organisations by undercover police units since 1968."

Probation officers are dismayed
that Sodexo has introduced open-plan interview rooms as part
of the part-privatisation of the service. In 2014 the group was
awarded six areas, known as Community Rehabilitation Companies,
in which it has introduced booths for interviewing offenders
in open-plan offices."

BIOMETRICS: 4F
allows the use of smartphone finger photos as a contactless fingerprint
identification system to match with legacy databases(Biometric
Update, link): "Developing an efficient and effective
fingerprint biometric system has never been more essential. Preliminary
findings demonstrate the capability of a new, proprietary fingerprint
biometric system, 4FingerID (4FTM), to produce high quality matches
against prints acquired using flatbed fingerprint scanners. The
4F technology requires only a smartphones rear-facing camera
and its flash to capture multiple fingerprints simultaneously
and, as such, opens the door to portable, cost-effective matching
against existing legacy databases held, for example, by government
bodies."

ESTONIA: One
of Estonias most powerful agencies embroiled in scandals
(BBN, link): "There is reason to be worried about SMIT,
the information technology and development centre of Interior
Ministry that is one of the most powerful and secretive government
agencies and controls all national security IT systems, investigative
TV programme Pealtnägija (Eyewitness) reported yesterday."

Meeting in Brussels, Belgian
and French prime ministers Charles Michel and Manuel Valls also
tried to diffuse tension between the two countries. Belgium was
criticised after it emerged the authors of the November Paris
attacks came from Brussels."

German police arrest suspected terrorists (EUobserver, link): "German
police arrested a man in Berlin and a woman and a man near Cologne
on Thursday (4 February) for what they believe may have been
preparation for a terror attack in the German capital.

Police raids were also operated
in Hannover. Two other men are still being hunted by security
forces, which are expected to publish photos on Friday."

Germany and Netherlands sign defence agreement (EUobserver, link): "German
soldiers will be able to use a Dutch warship under a cooperation
agreement signed Thursday by the two countries' defence ministers.
Under the agreement, still to be ratified, German commando units
will be able to use the supply ship Karel Doorman, equipped to
carry Leopard 2 tanks."

After more than 20 years of
strategic irrelevance, and thanks to increasingly unpredictable
Russian behaviour, Gotland is back in the spotlight.

It is the latest chapter in
the island's long military history, and one returning soldier
is thrilled."

UK: Early day motion in the House
of Commons:MILITARY
INTERVENTION IN LIBYA (Parliament, link): "That
this House notes with concern the reports that the UK is preparing
to provide weapons and support to tackle Daesh extremists in
Libya; condemns reports that a team of RAF and intelligence personnel
met recently in Tobruk to draw up potential targets for airstrikes
in Libya; calls on the Secretary of State for Defence to make
an urgent statement to the House on plans for military intervention
in Libya; and urges the Government not to undertake any military
action without the approval of the House."

The move will be part of a
major expansion of the powers of police and crime commissioners
into the areas of youth justice, probation and court services
to be proposed after their second set of elections take place
in May."

UK: Modern
slavery? The UK visa system and the exploitation of migrant domestic
workers (LSE, link): "It might be hard to believe
that a domestic worker  or anyone  is currently forced
to sleep on a bathroom floor or is locked up in a house. Yet
such experiences are very real for those who come to the UK on
an overseas domestic worker visa, writes Virginia Mantouvalou.
She explains how the current system  which provides a six-month,
non-renewable right to stay  does not allow such workers
to change employers. Those who run away due to appalling experiences
are thus unable to find a new job and become undocumented. She
writes that changing the visa system is the only way forward,
if the UK is to treat everyone as human."

The Guardian has learned that
Sarah Reed, 32, was charged with grievous bodily harm with intent
over the incident in October after striking back at her alleged
abuser. But rather than being released back into a secure hospital,
she was held on remand at Holloway prison, north London, where
she was found dead on 11 January.

UK: Six
reasons you can't take the Litvinenko report seriously(The
Guardian, link): "An inquiry into the assassination of
Alexander Litvinenko in the heart of London in 2006 has concluded
that he was probably murdered on the personal orders
of Vladimir Putin. This is a troubling accusation."

UK-ECHR: Is
the European Court of Human Rights buckling under Westminister
pressure? (UK Human Rights Blog, link): "In the
last four years there were some 80 judgments where the UK was
the respondent and in about 40 of those cases one or more violations
were found. This does not seem to be particularly (statistically)
out of step with previous periods. However do the key cases suggest
the widening of the margin of appreciation for the UK?"

Adrian Dragan, currently detained
in Giurgiu Prison, brought the complaint again Romania in protest
at his jail conditions. The European Court of Human Rights will
deliver its judgement on the case tomorrow (2 February)."

EU: The
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: a tool to
enhance and protect the rule of law? (FREE Group, link):
"Fifteen years after the proclamation in Nice of the
European Charter of Fundamental Rights and six years after its
transformation in a text of EU primary law, it could be now the
right time to evaluate its impact assessment on the European
legal order (covering both the EU institutions and the Member
States when acting under the EU Treaties) in order to asses where
critical tensions emerge or where still are unfulfilled opportunities."

IRELAND: Fine
Gael blocked abortion debate at ard fheis (Irish Independent,
link): "Fine Gael blocked members from engaging in any
debate on abortion at the party's final ard fheis before the
General Election, the Sunday Independent can reveal."

The proposal, which has been
sent to hearing, applies in cases where there is reason
to believe that a person is planning to become a foreign fighter,
says Anders Anundsen, Minister of Justice for the Progress Party
(FrP).

If passed, it would mean that
passports could either be refused or recalled.

The legislation could be invoked
if there were suspicions that the journey out of Norway was due
to: participation in acts of terror and/or terror-related acts,
or illegal participation in military operations abroad."

POLAND: Polish
senate approves Internet surveillance law(Yahoo! News,
link): "Poland's senate on Friday approved a controversial
amendment making it easier for the secret service and police
to access Internet data, stoking concerns about the state of
democracy in the EU member.

The new measure will notably
give the police direct permanent access to a whole host of metadata
regarding the online activity of Poles. The police will no longer
have to ask Internet service providers for access each time."

Trusting Big Data Research(SSRN,
link): "Although it might puzzle or even infuriate data
scientists, suspicion about big data is understandable. The concept
doesnt seem promising to most people. It seems scary. This
is partly because big data research is shrouded in mystery. People
are unsure about organizations motives and methods. What
do companies think they know about us? Are they keeping their
insights safe from hackers? Are they selling their insights to
unscrupulous parties? Most importantly, do organizations use
our personal information against us? Big data research will only
overcome its suspicious reputation when people can trust it."

Opening a fresh inquest into
the death of Pte Cheryl James, 18, discovered with a single gunshot
wound to her head at the Surrey barracks in 1995, coroner Brian
Barker QC said: This is not a public inquiry into the culture
at Deepcut in the mid-1990s."

Nick Hardwick, who is stepping
down later this year, issued a parting shot to the Ministry of
Justice (MoJ) and, in particular, former justice secretary Chris
Grayling in a series of media interviews over the weekend.

Speaking to the influential
blog Prison UK, Hardwick pinned the blame for overcrowded and
deteriorating prisons directly on the MoJ.

"My time as chief inspector
has coincided with a deterioration in safety and conditions in
prison," he said."

UK:Prisons
inspector Nick Hardwick: You shouldnt do this job
for long because you get used to things you shouldnt(The Guardian, link): "The outgoing chief inspector
of prisons is explaining why he is so keen to get out of the
job. Its not the budget fights Nick Hardwick had with the
Ministry of Justice, nor the fact that he wasnt actively
encouraged to apply for another five-year stint. Its not
even the fact that the previous secretary of state for justice,
Lord Grayling, robustly tried to influence him 
as Hardwick revealed to a select committee last week.

No, he simply feared that
he was becoming desensitised; that he was getting prison-horror
fatigue. You shouldnt do this job for too long because
you get used to things you shouldnt get used to,
he says. Ill give you an example of something that
is objectively shocking, but how do you keep the outrage going?
Take the level of self-harm and suicide. On one level, one bit
of your brain is thinking, Oh well, theyve only had
two suicides since we were last here, good. On another
level, that is appalling."

Hashi, 26, who was stripped
of his British citizenship in 2012 by Theresa May, has spent
the past three years in solitary confinement in a New York prison.
He had pleaded guilty in May last year to conspiring to provide
material support to al Shabaab in Somalia several years earlier."

UK-EU: UK
referendum: Prime Minister Cameron visits European Parliament
(European Parliament, link): "Welcoming UK Prime Minister
David Cameron to Brussels today 29 January, President Martin
Schulz noted that, as co-legislator, the European Parliament
will have a key role to play in the success of any initiatives
for EU reforms resulting from negotiations. Their meeting revolved
around UK demands for changes to its relationship with Europe
ahead of a referendum on the country's membership of the EU.
The British vote will also be on the agenda of the upcoming EU
summit on 18-19 February."

Kriminalforsorgsforeningen
chairperson John Hatting was speaking to DR Nyheder following
reports that Søren Pind, the justice minister, will start
a number of initiatives to counter mobile phones being smuggled
into prisoners.

It was revealed yesterday
that four inmates serving time for their involvement in last
Februarys attacks on Krudttønden and a Copenhagen
synagogue have had access to seven mobile phones at different
times."

DENMARK: Precrime
arrests soaring in Denmark (The Copenhagen Post, link):
"The number of preventative arrests 
taking suspects into custody before they commit a crime, which
has been permitted since 2004  has soared in the last three
years."

E-voting won't solve the problem of voter
apathy (Open Rights
Group, link): "As the old English proverb has it the
road to hell is paved with good intentions. Such thoughts
spring to mind with the launch of the report Secure Voting by
campaigning group WebRoots Democracy. WebRoots are volunteers
who campaign for the introduction of online voting in Local
and General Elections. We know where they stand on this
issue, but how informed is their argument that online voting
can be secure?"

EU: Human
rights at the World Forum for Democracy 2015(OpenDemocracy,
link): "The Council for Europe's commissioner for human
rights warns that Europes new security-oriented turn restricts
fundamental human rights, a success for terrorists who want us
to abandon our lifestyle and live in fear. Short interview."

EU-USA: Data
privacy bill in Congress, trans-Atlantic deal elusive
(Reuters, link): "A U.S. Senate panel approved measures
on Thursday that were causing concern in Europe among negotiators
hammering out a new trans-Atlantic pact on electronic data transfer,
an issue for many companies such as Facebook and Microsoft.

In a step toward addressing
global concerns about data privacy, the Senate Judiciary Committee
approved legislation, headed next to the full Senate for a vote,
that would give some Europeans the right to sue in the United
States over allegations of electronic data privacy violations.

But amendments were added
at the last minute that raised questions from the European Union
in Brussels."

The appeal, filed by the Paris-based
Human Rights League (known by its French acronym, LDH)) suggested
that if the state of emergency could not be suspended, the Conseil
dÉtat should at the very least suspend some of its
measures, such as house searches and the ban on public gatherings."

HUNGARY: Socialists:
Fidesz using Communist era style show trials to increase popularity
(Politics.hu, link): "The Socialist Party on Thursday
said the Fidesz party is organising show trials reminiscent
of methods used in Hungarys darkest dictatorship
to increase its popularity. Gergely Bárándy, the
Socialist deputy head of Parliaments legislative committee,told
a press conference that the embezzlement trial of Miklós
Hagyó, in which the former Socialist deputy mayor of Budapest
was given two-year prison sentence, suspended for four years,
revealed that charges against Hagyó were based on
lies and that he never received bribes. Hagyó was
accused of running a criminal gang and causing huge damages to
municipal public transport company BKV in the years before August
2008. He was acquitted of the main corruption charges but the
court ruled that he had instigated embezzlement."

The pilot of a Boeing 737
passenger jet taking off from Stansted in September said a 6ft
(2-metre) long remote-controlled plane pass less than 15ft above
its path, at 4,000ft, in controlled airspace where any drone
flight is illegal."

The criticism
by the Police Federation is in response to an announcement by
Home Secretary Theresa May that police chiefs would get the power
to give more responsibility to support staff and unpaid helpers,
without becoming a special constable.

UK: For
richer, not for poorer (The Economist, link): "THE
Conservative Party promised ahead of its election victory in
2010 that it would bring annual net migration below 100,000 a
year. As the economy has grown, sucking in foreign workers, the
government has conspicuously failed to meet this goal: net migration
in the year to June 2015 was 336,000, a record. However, one
small but socially significant subsection has declined and remained
low: immigration by Britons foreign spouses."

Through the Freedom of Information
Act, The Register has learned that the Home Office  responsible
for the UK's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency,
MI5  lost documents containing "sensitive personal
information relating to security vetting." In a separate
incident, at least one birth certificate was lost."

UK-USA: Report:
US and UK spied on Israeli drones for years(AP, link):
"U.S and British intelligence cracked the codes of Israeli
drones operating in the Middle East and monitored their surveillance
feeds for almost 20 years, according to documents leaked by an
American whistleblower and published in international media on
Friday.

Reports by the German daily
Der Spiegel and the investigative website The Intercept said
the details emerged from documents leaked by Edward Snowden,
the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked millions
of documents about U.S. government surveillance in 2013."

EU:Internet
and public safety(European Commission, link): "During
the Internet Governance week at the end of January 2016, key
stakeholders from all over Europe and beyond will gather in Brussels
for an intense round of events, meetings and debates.

On Thursday 28 January, the
Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs will host
a meeting of the recently created Public Safety Working Group
of the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN. This whole-day
meeting will bring together law enforcement and public safety
organisations as well as private sector representatives to advance
cooperation on the ICANN's policies that have an impact on public
safety."

French police foiled another Paris terror
attack, says minister(The Guardian, link):
"Islamic terrorists planned to attack another concert
in Paris and carry out a mass killing in the city streets, the
French interior minister has said as he defended the governments
decision to continue the state of emergency imposed after the
November attacks."

Hamil Mehdi, a 25-year-old
street vendor, denied being a member of ISIS and said he had
recently visited Turkey "only to pray".

Cosenza police chief Luigi
Liguori said anti-terrorism DIGOS law enforcement agents had
been trailing Mehdi since last July, after Turkish authorities
blocked him at the Istanbul airport and sent him back to Italy."

Poland: Audit finds secret police unit
monitoring journalists(index, link): "A
recent audit by the bureau of internal affairs (BSW) has uncovered
two informal press surveillance units of the Polish police that
were set up to monitor journalists in connection with the tape
scandal for one year between 2014-15."

UK: Forthcoming reforms to human rights
law must not weaken protection(Council
of Europe, link): "The repeatedly delayed launch
of the consultation process for repeal of the Human Rights Act
has created much speculation and an atmosphere of anxiety and
concern in civil society and in some parts of the devolved administrations.
There is a real fear of regression in terms of rights protection
in the United Kingdom said today Nils Muinieks, Council
of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, at the end of his six
day visit to the country, which focused on the governments
forthcoming plans to repeal the Human Rights Act and create a
revised Bill of Rights, as well as the implementation of the
few remaining judgments from the European Court of Human Rights."

Members of the Plane Stupid
campaign group cut a hole in a fence and made their way on to
the north runway at Heathrow in July last year. They were found
guilty of aggravated trespass and entering a security-restricted
area of an aerodrome."

A report reveals dealers give
a substance to lags who are weak or in their debt to see how
strong or dangerous it is before distributing it  and some
desperate addicts are happy to test them as freebies."

UN: Mind
the gap: A review of the right to privacy at the UN in 2015 (Privacy International,
link): "In 2015 the United Nations' human rights mechanisms
significantly increased their capacity to monitor and assess
states' compliance with their obligations around the right to
privacy. Notably, the Human Rights Council established the mandate
of the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, filling a
significant gap in the international human rights protection
system. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Committee put surveillance
laws and practices in a range of countries under close scrutiny,
making key recommendations to remedy violations of the right
to privacy, particularly in the context of communications surveillance.

These positive
developments are in sharp contrast to the legislative expansion
of surveillance powers that are contrary to human rights standards.
At the same time that the UN has increased its attention on the
right to privacy, some governments have been adopting laws which,
in many cases, seek to legalise post facto the privacy invasive
practices of their security services. A spate of new laws that
expand digital surveillance powers and reduce safeguards below
the standards of international human rights law have been adopted,
or are in advanced stages of drafting, in countries such as Australia,
China, Denmark, France, Kenya, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Switzerland
and the United Kingdom, to name only a few."

EU: Davos
elites fear weakened European Union (Reuters, link):
"Fear of a severe weakening of the European Union is
the hot topic in the corridors and executive suites of Davos
this year with business leaders and politicians at the World
Economic Forum alarmed at closing borders and the risk of a British
exit."

EU: Safe
European Home  by Sarah Kay (Euro Rights Blog,
link): "Two specific areas of EU coordination could prove
crucial in the future, and need no part in the race to enact
further legislation and respond to the terrorism threat: the
already existing role of Europol, and the Schengen Information
System (SIS), currently shaken by immediate decisions to curb
travel within the EU. Both offer strong solutions that teeter
on the edge of human rights violations, specifically in the right
to privacy and freedom of movement. They however offer opportunities
that need no derogation and can be subjected to judicial review
by EU courts."

FINLAND: 'Soldiers
of Odin' street patrol harass expats in Helsinki (Helsinki
Times, link): "A group of three expat engineers were
harassed by a Finnish man identifying himself as a member of
the self proclaimed vigilante group, Soldiers of Odin near Helsinki
last weekend. The immigrants, who do not want their names to
be published in fear of reprisal, explain their ordeal:"

How trade deals threaten democracy and climate (EUobserver, link): "If there
was any doubt that international trade agreements threatened
both democracy and the climate, then thank the TransCanada Corporation
for making it abundantly clear.

Less than a week into the
new year, and less than a month after the international climate
talks in Paris, the Keystone XL pipeline developers are demonstrating
exactly who the real beneficiaries of international trade deals
are  corporations."

Ministers on the national
security council have been given the task of drawing up options
to end spurious claims, including measures to curb
the use of no win, no fee arrangements and the requirement
that legal aid claimants must have lived in the UK for 12 months."

UK: Society
demands clarity on legal aid contracting(Law Gazette,
link): "The Law Society has issued a plea for clarity
on criminal legal aid contracting amid speculation that the government
is on the brink of abandoning the troubled tender process."

UK-RUSSIA:Key
findings: who killed Alexander Litvinenko, how and why(The
Guardian, link): "Sir Robert Owens report into
Alexander Litvinenkos death runs to 338 pages. Written
in clear prose, with the odd moment of dry wit, it is a damning
indictment of the Russian president and his state, and of the
two, sometimes hapless, poisoners - Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei
Lugovoi - who followed its secret orders."

No information is coming out
of the court room in Holbæk. The police arrested the girl
at a home in Kundby yesterday. According to reports, she was
found with explosives and may have been supporting terrorism."

Crime-prevention centres (SSPs)
that focus on children and adolescents have recorded a higher
number of radicalised youth cases, and more Danes have been using
VINK, the anti-radicalisation hotline operated by Copenhagen
Municipality."

As usual, preselecting a limited
number of contenders was both fun and hard. There is always room
for debate. Always other judgments that deserve a shot at the
title. Other judgments to cheer at. And other judgments to boo
(somewhat). But we hope you find your champ among our contenders.
If not, you can always support an underdog by selecting Other.

The winners and losers will
be announced in about a month."

EU: CONFERENCE: 10
YEARS OF DATA PROTECTION DAY: REVIEW AND PROSPECTS(AEDH,
link): "The European Association for the Defense of Human
Rights (AEDH) is celebrating the 10th anniversary Data Protection
Day. It will be the opportunity to take testimony from the many
stakeholders who have, in their own way, moved forward the principles
inherent to this fundamental right. This will also be the opportunity
to look to the future and highlight the possible ways of facing
the challenges ahead while respecting fundamental rights."

The Macedonians holding dual
citizenship voted in Bulgarian diplomatic missions in Macedonia,
including at the Bulgarian embassy in Skopje, without being eligible
to do so.

They did not fulfill the criteria
for residence which stipulates that in order to be eligible to
vote in European Parliament elections they should have lived
in Bulgaria or other EU member state for at least three months
prior to the date of the elections."

EU: Press
seminar: Terrorism: the EU's response (European Parliament,
link): "The European Parliament's Press Service is holding
a seminar to provide members of the media and institutional representatives
the opportunity to look at the EU's response to terrorism. Parliament
is starting to discuss new proposals to criminalise travel for
terrorist purposes and terrorist financing, to ban certain weapons
and restrict the sale of firearms on the black market."

EU: Viviane
Reding on TiSA negotiations: The right to regulate has
to be preserved (European Parliament, link): "The
EU and 22 countries, representing 70% of world trade in services,
are currently negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).
It cant enter into force with the approval of the Parliament.
MEPs are closely following negotiations and have demanded more
transparency. The international trade committee votes on a report
with recommendations on 14 January. We asked report author Viviane
Reding, a Luxembourg member of the EPP group, what will determine
Parliament's approval of any deal."

In an interview with the Bulgarian
National Radio, she has admitted Bucharest has performed far
better than Bulgaria over the past year with regard to court
cases of public interest, high-level corruption, the fight against
organized crime."

GERMANY:Police
arrest 40 immigrant men in Düsseldorf raid (Deutsche
Welle, link): "Düsseldorf authorities have arrested
40 men in a raid on the city's so-called "Maghreb"
neighborhood. German officials say men from North Africa have
drawn their attention with involvement in criminal activities."

Jitse A was picked up in Arnhem
and is being investigated for his role in killing Islamic State
jihadis while fighting with YPG forces, the public prosecution
department said in a statement."

NETHERLANDS: KNVB
investigates racist chanting at ADO Den Haag match (Dutch
News, link): "Official Dutch football association policy
on dealing with racist chants may be changed to allow referees
or players to leave the pitch without punishment, a KNVB spokesman
said on Monday.

Gijs de Jong, who heads the
KNVBs operational affairs department, was speaking after
ADO Den Haag fans made monkey noises when Ajax player Riechedly
Bazoer had the ball during this weekends premier division
tie.

If the referee or, in
this case, Riechedly Bazoer, no long want to play, the match
should be halted, De Jong told broadcaster Nos."

SPAIN: New
Catalan premier admits he lacks backing to declare independence
(El País, link): "Do we have enough strength
to proclaim independence with the current parliamentary makeup?
Not yet, said the man who was mayor of Girona until last
week, when his name suddenly came up as a replacement for acting
premier Artur Mas at the helm of the Catalan government. His
last-minute nomination narrowly averted new elections in the
region following more than three months of feuding between separatist
forces over who should be the next premier."

The Prime Minister today outlined
plans to language-test all spouses who immigrate join their partner
living in Britain two and a half years after they arrive here.

Failing the language test
could lead to the new arrivals right to stay in the UK
being revoked and them being sent back to their country of origin,
he said."

UK: Landlord
checks: looking for footprints in the dirt
(Migrants' Rights Network, link): "Private landlords
are due to start checking the immigration status of prospective
tenants from 1 February. Is this the start of a system where
we all become unpaid Border Guards in the government's pursuit
of tougher immigration controls?"

This, it turns out, was an
unwitting example of Project Servator at work  a new tactic
to make life difficult for terrorists doing their homework, or
hostile reconnaissance as the police describe it.

It involves using undercover
officers trained in behavioural analysis to spot people who might
be scoping out sites for a potential terrorist attack. Their
expertise is in noticing the subtle, sometimes unconscious ways
in which people behave differently when they are stressed or
anxious. They are stationed in a certain area just before the
appearance of other officers in hi-vis uniforms and sometimes
those on horses, with dogs or heavily armed."

UK:We
deserve a justice system that is open and transparent(The Justice Gap, link): "Campaigners, university
criminal appeals units and innocence projects, and lawyers are
calling on the government to stop systematically destroying court
transcripts after five years preventing victims of miscarriages
of justice appealing their convictions."

Montasser AlDeemeh runs
a centre in Brussels gritty Molenbeek district - where
several of those who carried out Novembers Paris attacks
lived - that aims to prevent young Belgians from going to fight
in Syria and also help reintegrate those who do so on their return."

The Dutch, who hold the rotating
European Union presidency, circulated a draft outlining the objective
to roughly 250 delegates of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum
(GCTF) and Anti-ISIS Coalition meeting in The Hague, an official
said."

EU: First-ever
EU-wide cyber-security rules
backed by Internal Market Committee (EP press release,
pdf): "Firms supplying essential services, e.g. for energy,
transport, banking and health, or digital ones, such as search
engines and cloud computing, will have to take action to improve
their ability to withstand cyber-attacks under new rules approved
by Internal Market MEPs on Thursday. These rules, informally
agreed by MEPs and Council negotiators on 7 December, were approved
by 34 votes to 2. They now need to be endorsed by the Council
and the full Parliament."

EU: Top
5 Tech  All you need to know about the Dutch EU Presidency
(vieuws, link): "In this special briefing, leading journalist
Jennifer Baker picks out the Top 5 Tech priorities that will
be discussed by the European institutions under the Dutch EU
presidency:" Covers: encryption, smart borders, safe
harbour, the digital single market and spectrum reform.

Police have detained at least
12 academics over alleged terror propaganda after
they signed a petition together with more than 1,400 others calling
for an end to Turkeys deliberate massacre and deportation
of Kurdish people."

UK: Film
Screening, 18 February 2016: Leave to Remain with QA from Director
Bruce Goodison(Queen Mary University of London, link):
"Leave to Remain is a provocative coming of age story
about a young Afghan boy whos arrival sets off a chain
of events that jeopardises the future of those closest to him.
Unwittingly he plays an unimaginable game of chance where winning
and getting Leave to Remain to stay in the UK is not always what
it seems, and all hope hinges on just how good a story he can
tell."

UK: Phone
Hackers: Britain's Secret Surveillance (Vice News, link):
"IMSI catchers are portable surveillance tools used for
spying on thousands of phones in a targeted area, tracking their
location and even intercepting calls, messages, and data. They
are supposed to help identify serious criminals, but cannot operate
without monitoring innocent people too.

UK police have IMSI catchers,
but they refuse to tell the public how and when they are used.
This has privacy campaigners worried. And, even if the state
is using them sparingly, what if criminals also have access to
the technology?

VICE News searches London
for IMSI catchers, then goes shopping at a state security fair,
and finally finds a shady technology company who'll sell us the
spy gear."

EU: TAXE:
GUE/NGL member sues European Commission over document access
(Fabio de Masi press release, link): "A legal study commissioned
by GUE/NGL finds that the European Commission violated EU law
when not disclosing documents, such as its minutes of the European
Council's Codeof Conduct Group on business taxation, and by imposing
restrictions on MEPs' access to documents."

Journalists at the newspapers
London HQ arrived on Monday morning to find the boxes, which
track whether someone is at their desk using heat and motion
sensors, BuzzFeed reported. Telegraph management emailed staff
at lunchtime, saying the monitors would be in place for four
weeks to help plan measures to improve energy efficiency."

UK: UNDERCOVER POLICING: The Met
Police must suspend domestic extremism unit now (Undercover
Research Group): "The shocking story of deliberate destruction
of police surveillance on Baroness Jenny Jones throws into stark
relief what we all feared  the Metropolitan Police are
going to obstruct the public inquiry into undercover policing."

EU: Let
there be light (New Europe, link): "We return
to a dossier of an organization that received EU funding and
was audited. Somehow, the audit disappeared (well, was closed
by the European Commission). Nevertheless the audit paperwork,
did not disappear. For today, we spare you the details of the
case.

We bring forward to you two
pages of the audit report that we received from the Commission
following a request through Regulation 1049/2001. The document
we were provided with, appears to the right. This is the first
of the two pages, both of which were equally black."

EU-SLOVENIA: Interior
minister says systematic border control tough task (STA,
link): "Maribor, 9 January - Interior Minister Vesna
Györkös nidar has told the daily Vecer that a
potential introduction of systematic control on the external
borders of the Schengen zone, with EU citizens also being under
stricter scrutiny, would represent a tough logistic task for
the Slovenian police."

Fiction: Breaking Unbreakable Encryption (Monday Note, link): "As discussed
in a recent Monday Note titled Lets Outlaw Math, electronic
messages that are encoded with modern encryption techniques are
truly indecipherable by interlopers, it doesnt matter whether
theyre criminals or governments. The latter have attempted
to legislate backdoors that only they can use (to protect us,
of course), but theres a danger: These golden keys
could fall into the wrong hands. In any case, a backdoor only
works where its been installed; unbreakable public domain
encryption is available to everyone, terrorists and traffickers
included.

So Case closed, good
guys and bad guys alike can safely use unbreakable
codes?

Not so fast."

FRANCE: Paris
assailant had seven identities but is yet unknown(New
Europe, link): "The lone assailant who attacked a police
station in Paris with a butchers knife in Barbès
neighborhood on Thursday, January 7th had a criminal record.
He had arrests for drug dealing, assault, firearm possession,
and sexual harassment. But, his identity is yet to be established
with confidence."

GERMANY: Papers
criticized for racist Cologne covers (The
Local, link): " Two of Germanys leading news publications
have been heavily criticized for using imagery described as disgustingly
sexist and racist' to portray the Cologne sexual assaults."

GERMANY: Racist
attacks ratchet up tension in Cologne (The Local, link):
" A mob of men attacked a group of Pakistanis in the
Cologne city centre on Sunday evening. A few minutes later a
Syrian was also attacked in what appear to be racially motivated
attacks.

The group of around 20 men
assaulted six Pakistanis in the early evening. Two of the Pakistanis
sustained serious injuries and had to be brought to hospital,
police report."

Happy All the Time (Lapham's Quarterly, link): "As
biometric tracking takes over the modern workplace, the old game
of labor surveillance is finding new forms."

Radical new proposals by Justice
Minister Frances Fitzgerald will also apply to criminals who
are planning future appeals against their convictions.

The State spends around 50m
a year providing free legal aid, which goes towards the cost
of hiring solicitors and barristers, witness expenses and technical
and medical reports."

SPAIN: 70,000
people march in Bilbao in support of Basque prisoners
[70.000 personas en la marcha de apoyo a presos en Bilbao] (Digaonal
Periodico, link): 70,000 people took to the Streets of Bilbao
to call for the end of the policy of dispersion and respect for
human rights for some 400 Basque prisoners in 70 prisons across
all of the Spanish state, France and Portugal, reports Diagonal
Periodico.

UK drone and air strikes in 2015 
a look at the data(Drone Wars UK, link):
"Analysing updates published by the Ministry of Defence
(MoD) of RAF operations in Iraq and Syria give something of an
insight into the use of drones and aircraft for strikes by British
forces in 2015. The updates do not give a complete picture as
some strikes are omitted (for example the targeted killing of
Reyaad Khan) and the number of strikes recorded in the reports
do not match officially published figures. Nevertheless they
do give a broad indication of British air operations against
ISIS."

UK: Iraq
abuse inquiry firm referred to SDT (Law Gazette, link):
"One of two firms investigated by the Solicitors Regulation
Authority for its role in allegations of British army abuses
in Iraq revealed today that it had been referred to the Solicitors
Disciplinary Tribunal. London personal injury and clinical negligence
firm Leigh Day said that it 'strongly denies' allegations made
by the SRA."

UK: Taimour
Lay on Do It Yourself fresh asylum and human rights claims: video
(Free Movement, link): "A DIY approach is difficult in
immigration law. Hardly a year goes by without the higher courts
complaining about a degree of complexity which even the
Byzantine emperors would have envied [as lamented by Jackson
LJ in 2013]. This is even more of a problem as legal aid is removed
from the jurisdiction for everything but international protection
and judicial review  and the Residence Test
may well put paid to the latter."

Tucked into the white ceiling
tiles, the ceiling camera he had installed at the Pappajohn Business
Building at the University of Iowa scans the faces of all who
pass under it and instantly calculates their moods  collecting
readings for joy, frustration, confusion, fear, anger and sadness."

The program scoured billions
of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial
databases, deep Web searches and the mans social- media
postings. It calculated his threat level as the highest of three
color-coded scores: a bright red warning."

Statewatch does not have
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